


broken orbit

by brietopia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 28,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brietopia/pseuds/brietopia
Summary: A series of (prompted) Theron/Caldis drabbles, originally posted on my Tumblr.





	1. Wonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw death, maybe? idk??

She sees him: limbs splayed, head cocked grotesquely to one side. His Force energy flickers, faint, and now she’s running, leaping over broken bodies, the remnants of a Skytrooper, a discarded blaster. Lana’s behind her, calling her name— _Callie, wait, it’s not safe!_ But her vision tunnels, a kaleidoscope of _Theron_ and _Theron_ and _Theron_ …

Her footsteps echo, and his eyes open, lashes fluttering. After a moment, he focuses, finds her. Smiles. It’s a weak, trembling thing. “You came.”

 _Of course I came_ , she wants to say, but doesn’t. She shakes her head, dropping to her knees, hands flitting everywhere, checking for life, solidity. Confirmation, at the very least. They come back red, slick, streaked with horror. “No,” she breathes. “No, no, no…”

“Callie.”

“ _No_ ,” she says, again, and her eyes fill with hot, shameful tears. She blinks, hard. Tries to remember the Code— _there is no emotion_ , which is a lie; _there is peace_ , which is even more of a lie. “Save your strength.”

The Force comes to her, then, as if on tiptoe. She grabs hold of it with both hands, tendrils wrapping around her wrists, and pulls—the distant sound of something cracking, and then, warmth, gushing through her. And out of the corner of her eye, she sees it: Her hands, glowing, blurred.

Theron sees it, too, and his eyes go wide, and it’s almost like they’re on Rishi again. Wobbly legs, earnest hearts. Soft, gentle touches. Only this time she can’t afford to lose him, possibly because she’s lost everything else. Still, there’s something in his gaze. She would almost call it devotion—the way his face contorts in the light of her healing energy, body arcing off the ground, as if to touch it. Reverence, maybe, or wonder.

“I thought knights couldn’t heal,” he says, and there—a flicker of a smile, her favorite smile, the smile he saves for her.

She laughs. A quiet, wracked sound. “Not funny.”

“Maybe not.” A wheeze. “But I made you laugh.”

“You must’ve hit your head.” Her eyes flick from wound to wound. She’ll never be able to fix him, she knows, but she doesn’t necessarily have to; she just has to keep him alive until someone gets here who _can_. “Where does it hurt, Theron?”

Silence. She can feel him fading—softly, like a sunset, receding gently in the distance.

Finally, “Everywhere.”

She doesn’t think. She presses her palms to the first wound she sees. Opens herself to the Force—that warm, thrumming liquid—and _seethes_.


	2. Warmth

“I would’ve brought Teeseven, you know,” she says. “You didn’t have to come with me.”

“So you’re saying you’d choose an astromech over me?”

“I’m saying,” she says, with a soft laugh, “that droids don’t get cold. I mean, their parts freeze and eventually shut down, but useless parts are a lot easier to deal with than, y’know, _frostbite_.”

“I don’t have frostbite.”

“Not _yet_.”

“Would it help if I said I’m not planning on getting frostbite? Ever?”

She sighs, squinting at the horizon. The sun’s about to set—a few more hours and they’ll need to head back to base. Blizz won’t be happy, but the Jawa doesn’t strike her as a particularly angry sort. Besides, she’s sure the Jedi Blizz had spoken of—if, of course, he actually _is_ one—can wait one more day.

“I just don’t want to lose you,” she says, eventually, which is a lot more truthful than she’d expected it to be. Not that he’s actually in danger of dying from frostbite, but—well, she just got him back.

There is silence for a long moment. Nothing but the wind, howling. Snow drifts across their path, piling up, suddenly insurmountable. Her speeder tilts to one side, sputtering angrily, and she presses her palm to the center console, willing it—begging it—to last, just a few more hours. _C’mon, baby. Don’t die on me now._

“I missed you,” Theron says, finally. He shivers, again, and presses against her, tucking his face into the collar of her jacket. His voice is soft, small, and it strikes something inside her—a tender, unsuspecting place, one that only ever reacts to him. “I know it probably didn’t seem that long to you, but five years is…” He exhales. His breath puffs against the curve of her jaw, hot, lingering. “I wanted to spend time with you. Away from—”

“Lana?” Her voice is light. Purposely so.

“Lana,” he agrees, chuckling. “And Koth. And Senya…”

“Be nice,” she says, and he laughs, and it warms her. Which almost seems impossible, given the circumstances.

“Anyway,” he continues, voice dropping. His mouth brushes the curve of her neck, and she lets out a small, breathy sigh. Doesn’t he know she’s trying to drive? “I thought, ‘hey, some alone time might be nice,’ but that was before I knew we’d be trekking halfway across a frozen ball of ice to deliver a bunch of trinkets to a Jawa and his friends.”

“His name is Blizz.”

He makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

“It is!”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She sighs. She always seems to want to kiss him at the most inopportune times, like driving through a tundra, which is probably one of the reasons the Order warned so strongly against forming attachments.

 _Not that it matters_ , she thinks, dimly. _The Order’s gone, now, at any rate._

“You know I want to take you everywhere,” she says. To her credit, she only blushes a tiny bit, which is really quite indicative of her progress. She hadn’t been able to look him in the eye for days after they’d first arrived on Odessen.

A pause. Then, “Really?”

“I missed you, too.” Her voice softens. “And I wasn’t even gone that long. At least, it didn’t seem like it.”

Silence, again. In the distance, the sound of a creature howling. She’d forgotten how desolate Hoth can be, untouched, new. For the first time since arriving here, Caldis shivers.

“Let’s just get this done with,” he says, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck, “so we can get home.”

She exhales, leaning against him. His arms tighten almost imperceptibly around her waist, anchoring her against him—warm, solid, vaguely familiar. “Home sounds nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually brought Theron with me to Hoth for Blizz's recruitment mission and I felt so! bad!! he looked so cold!!! and then I got this prompt and all I could think about was grumpy!Theron and Callie, squished together on her crappy ol' speeder, which—naturally—she has to drive, because she's the only one who knows how to handle it.


	3. Playful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> set a few hours after Chapter II of KOTET!

“Theron.”

He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t even react, really, so she tries again.

“Theron.”

Still nothing. She frowns, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t look all that preoccupied—elbow propped on the desk, chin resting in the palm of his hand, flicking lazily at a datapad—but, for all she knows, he’s listening to HoloNet feeds over his cybernetics.

“ _Theron_ ,” she says, one last time, and—

He blinks. Looks up at her, smiles. It’s a tired smile, but a genuine one, and she tries to take some measure of comfort in that. “Hey there,” he says. “I thought you were going to that…”

“Party,” she supplements.

“Right. That.”

“I was. Am,” she adds, as an afterthought. “But I figured I’d stop by and see if I could convince you—” pushing herself off the wall, stepping closer, bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet— “to come with me?”

His lips twitch. But then he sighs, and all that excitement trickles out of her, pooling in some extraneous, unnecessary limb. “Callie…”

“C’ _mon_ ,” she says, bounding forward. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, right? I mean, really, when was the last time the Empire allied with someone against a neutral third party? Officially, which means the whole Revan, Rishi, Yavin Four thing _doesn’t count_.” She pokes his shoulder—which, now that she thinks about it, maybe wasn’t the best idea. Perching on the edge of his desk, she swings her legs, toying with one datapad out of…— _stars_ , she doesn’t know how many. His collection is starting to get out of hand. And do they all need to be on his desk? “People are ecstatic. And by ‘people’ I mean, y’know, Imperials. But some of the Pubs look like they’re coming around, which means that, after a few drinks, everyone will be—” She gestures vaguely at nothing in particular. “ _Plus_ , Gault challenged Lana to a game of Pazaak, which means Koth is eventually gonna have to step in and keep her from betting her very soul, and who doesn’t want to watch _that_ unfold? It’s like the game shows on the holo, but better, because you actually have a stake in how it all turns out. _And_ I’m rambling a bit, aren’t I?”

His lips twitch again. “Kind of.”

“Sorry.”

He tilts back in his chair. After a moment, his mouth curls upward, and something unspools in her stomach—warmth, she thinks, vaguely. Her cheeks flood with it. “Callie…”

“Don’t ‘Callie’ me.” It comes out harsher than she’d intended it to. She sighs. “It’s a _celebration_ , Theron. We’re _celebrating_. And, like, not to make you feel guilty or anything, but it’s kind of hard for me to celebrate without you.”

An understatement, really. She’s always looking for him, picking him out of a crowd, even when he’s not there—even when he’s Force knows where, meeting with a contact, doing something dangerous.

He glances at the datapads, strewn haphazardly across the desk. She fights the urge to gather them—every single one—to her chest, hiding them from view. Maybe then he’d forget about them. Maybe then he’d look at her. “I just have a lot of work to do,” he says, and it almost sounds like an apology.

Almost.

“We all do.”

“But not everyone is trying to keep you safe.”

Silence.

“I thought you were dead,” he adds, then. “We all did. And I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so—” _Scared_ , he doesn’t say. But the word lingers, undulating. “And now that the Empire is _officially_ an ally, I have to make sure the Empress—”

“Acina,” she corrects, without thinking.

“Acina,” he echoes. “I’m not saying she’s not worth having as an ally. But I don’t trust her, not as far as I can throw her. And considering what happened today—”

“It wasn’t her fault.” Again, without thinking. She presses her lips together, practically biting her own tongue.

“You don’t know that.”

He hangs his head, then, and it occurs to her just how _tired_ he looks. To be fair, they all look tired; it’s probably part of the job description, if there even is such a thing. But this is different. This is a bone-deep weariness, casting his features in a watery, oddly-angled light.

She takes a breath. And another, and another, until she’s leaning forward, cupping his cheek. His shoulders sag, and he sighs, nuzzling her palm, pressing a kiss to it. He still won’t look her in the eye.

“I’m here now, though,” she says, eventually. Her voice is small—unbefitting, she thinks, of the Hero of Tython, and all the other people she’s been since then. Battlemaster of the Jedi Order. The Outlander. Commander of the Alliance. “And I’m not going anywhere, at least for tonight. And—” she presses her thumb to the corner of his mouth, trying to coax a smile from him, even if it’s fabricated— “I know you don’t trust Acina. Which is probably a smart move, considering. But she’s our ally. An ally we _need_ , which…” Her speeches never seem to work on Theron. Either her tongue won’t work or her words fall short, and this time, it seems to be a mixture of the two. “We need victories. You know? _I_ need victories, but it’s not a victory if you’re not there to share in the celebration with me.”

She wants him out there, with her, and she considers saying as much: _I always want you with me, no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing._ She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Only a breath. A sigh, one that sounds suspiciously like _please_.

“You can’t stay in here forever.” She pulls one of his hands into her lap. Their fingers slide together for a moment, only to interlace, his thumb sweeping across her knuckles. It’s a familiar touch. An intimate one, and something settles inside her. At least she knows he’s listening. “And I don’t want you to. I’m pretty sure I’d lose my mind if you started spending all your time in here. I’d stop being the Alliance Commander and become, like, head of the ‘Get Theron Out of His Office’ committee, which would actually be more of a dictatorship than a committee, since I’d probably fall to the Dark Side out of sheer concern for your wellbeing…”

There. Recognition, finally. “You’re rambling, again.”

“Ah, but you’re smiling.” She grins, tongue caught between her teeth. “My evil plan is working.”

After a moment, he lifts his head, and a small piece of the man she loves—the man she met on the Fleet, before Rishi, before Ziost and Zakuul—returns, probably from beyond the Rim. “You’re not gonna leave until I agree, are you?”

“Nope,” she says, popping her _p_. “In fact, I probably won’t leave until you turn off all your datapads. And since there’s, like, a billion of them, you might want to get started.”

He laughs, shaking his head. And she thinks, _this is the way it should be._ Theron isn’t Theron unless he’s shaking his head at her, possibly out of amusement, probably out of wonder.

He stands. Placing his palms on either side of her, he leans forward, pressing his mouth to hers. When he pulls back, he’s smiling, and it’s finally— _finally_ —the smile she loves. Her favorite smile. “Are they really gonna play Pazaak?”

She nods.

“I thought Lana was past this.”

“Gault has his ways.” Hopping off the desk, she moves to the tips of her toes, pressing a kiss to his cheek. His arm settles around her waist, pulling her into him, steadying her. “And so do I, apparently.”

He quirks a brow. “A bit full of yourself, don’t you think?”

“You love it.”

A pause. Then, “Maybe I do.”


	4. Golden

“I still can’t believe you’re from here.”

“Tell me about it.” Her voice is small. Unbearably so, and he pulls his eyes from the rolling hills, the snow-capped mountains, the clear blue streams, to look at her. She’s sitting next to him, ramrod-straight, hands folded almost demurely in her lap. He can’t be sure, but it almost looks like she’s picking at her cuticles.

“Sometimes I forget I spent the first sixteen years of my life here,” she continues, seemingly unaware of the way his eyes rest on her—heavy, veiled with concern. “It just seems like such a long time ago. Which makes sense, I guess, considering the fact that I’m, like, _old_. But it’s more than that. It’s—” She sighs. Her head falls back against the seat cushion. “I’ve changed. A lot. And so much of who I was here is… gone.”

“Who were you?” It’s too direct, but it’s too late to take it back, so he nudges her shoulder with his. An invitation. _I’m listening._

Her lips curl in that soft, blurred way, infuriatingly pink. He thinks, not for the first time, how desperately he wants to kiss her—and promptly chalks it up to something in the air, like Alderaanian pollen, or something equally as ridiculous. “Head in the clouds,” she says. “Or, I guess, stars. There was a whole _galaxy_ out there, just waiting for someone like me to, y’know, steal a speeder, hitch a ride to Coruscant. But I really did love it here.” Her smile dims. Grows heavier. “It was great, for a while. Idyllic. You can’t get much better than life as a noble. But then the war blew up and people started dying and…” She trails off, staring into space, gnawing ruthlessly at her lower lip.

He watches her for a long moment, uncertain. He’s never sure where, exactly, she goes when she does this, but it’s always up to him to bring her back. Which, now that he thinks about it, is an awful lot of responsibility. It’s like holding a fragile bird in his cupped hands, thumb pressed to its tiny, frenzied heart.

Finally, he leans across the taxi, pulling her lip from the gleaming white snare of her teeth. “Careful,” he says. “Looks like you’re about to draw blood.”

“What?” She tilts her head to one side, blinks. Then it seems to dawn on her, and she lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. “Oh. Sorry.” A pause. Then, “Just so you know, I might be in a bit of a—” she waves a hand through the air, which only draws his attention to how utterly raw her cuticles are; he’d been right— “weird mood while we’re here.”

He can’t help but smirk at that. “Really?”

She doesn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. Or, if she does, she doesn’t react to it. “It’s just that I haven’t been here, and by ‘here’ I mean _home_ , the house I used to live in, for… over a decade. I’ve always done my best to avoid it, but now I can’t, which sucks, because now I have to deal with my mom and my old room, assuming they haven’t turned it into a spa or something, and, like—”

“ _Callie_ ,” he says, before he effectively loses her to the lure of her own spiral, sucking her into the depths. “It’s just a party.”

“Just a party,” she echoes, barking a laugh, and it’s the saddest, most pitiful sound he’s ever heard. “You’ve obviously never been to an Alderaanian party before.”

He has, but he tries not to think about it. “You forget I’m a spy.”

A pause. Then, “Fine. But I _know_ you’ve never been to a party thrown by my _mother_ , which is its own specific brand of hell. I mean,” she adds, “I’m wearing a dress, Theron. A _dress_.” She tugs ruefully at the fabric, draped over her lap. “Do you know how long it’s been since I wore a dress?”

“Too long.”

She glares at him, but there’s still a kind of softness there. “Funny.”

“I’m serious. You should wear dresses more often.”

“Because that’s definitely an appropriate style choice for the Commander of the Alliance.”

“I’m just saying,” he says, shrugging a shoulder. He looks past her, and the sky is a hazy smear of pinks, purples, blues, offset by the rolling hills of the countryside. The sun is setting, and it washes her—him, too, but mostly her—in a golden, almost otherworldly glow. She looks strangely tender, like he could bring her blood to the surface with one innocent touch. “You look beautiful, Callie.” He lifts a hand, cards his fingers through the dark, shining curls that frame her face. “It’s probably selfish of me, but I wouldn’t mind seeing you like this more often.”

She’s grown more comfortable with his touches, but they still seem to take her by surprise. She doesn’t flinch, per se—she just arches into it, into his hand, like he’s the only one that’s ever wanted this before. Wanted _her_ before. Which, he thinks, might be true, oddly enough.

She looks at him, uncertain. “Really?” she asks, and he almost laughs. Coming from anyone else, it’d seem coy. Seductive, even. But he knows it’s just Callie.

“Yeah.” He tugs on a curl, watching it stretch, bounce. “Besides, don’t act like you don’t get tired of wearing armor all the time.”

Her brow furrows. “Sure,” she says, after a moment. “But that doesn’t mean I should go around decked out in lace every day.”

“Why not?”

She makes a sound in the back of her throat. She’s trying very hard not to show it, but—well, he _is_ a spy. And he knows her, sometimes better than he knows himself. And it’s obvious, really: the faint flush to her cheeks; the quiet hitching of her breath, more pronounced with every brush of his fingertips. “Now you sound like Vette.”

He turns his palm inward, cupping her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw. “And that’s bad because…”

“Because,” she echoes, blinking. Struggling to think. “Because this dress doesn’t have pockets?”

He stumbles across her pulse-point. It skitters rapidly under his touch, fluttery, straining against her skin. “Which is bad because…”

She lets out a noise, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. And he thinks, _that’s the sound I’d fight an empire for_. “Because then I can’t smuggle my ‘saber in,” she says. “And, like, what if there’s a rogue Skytrooper lurking around? Or a manka? I’m useless without—” He leans closer, thumbing her lower lip—which, incidentally, is still red from her earlier display of nerves—and her eyes go wide. “Hi,” she says, breathlessly, blinking up at him, and—

He wants to kiss her. But the taxi’s beginning its descent—a few more minutes and they’ll be on the steps of House Elanne. So he pushes the thought away, deep, deep down, until there’s a window of opportunity and they can steal away to a dark, abandoned hall.

Still, he presses his lips to hers, long enough to distract her. Long enough to pull something from beneath the taxi seat, pressing it into her waiting, unfurled hands. It takes a moment for it to register, but once it does, she’s pulling back, face splitting with a wide grin.

“You didn’t.”

He feigns innocence. “Did what?”

She pushes against his shoulder with the heel of her hand. “You,” she sputters, “are—I can’t believe—… How?!”

“Spy,” he reminds her, but it doesn’t matter—she’s too busy cradling the hilt of her lightsaber, weighing it in the palm of her hand, as if he’d actually go to all the trouble of smuggling a weapon that isn’t hers.

“ _Theron_ ,” she breathes, and it’s the happiest he’s seen her since she received her mother’s invitation.

( _Parties are all well and good_ , she’d said, _but not when they’re in celebration of ‘my achievements’._ Complete with finger-quotes. _I mean, what is she thinking? She has to know I’m not gonna let her parade me around like some kind of—_

 _Hero?_ Lana had suggested, clearly amused.

He’d shrugged, probably in agreement. Frankly, though, he’s still not sure. _You did kind of save the Galaxy, Callie._

 _Yeah_ , she’d allowed. _But so did you! And you_ , she’d added, gesturing haphazardly in Lana’s direction. _And then there’s Koth, and Senya, and Teeseven and Aric and Vette and Kaliyo and Gault…_ )

“Think of it as a security blanket,” he says, prying the lightsaber from her greedy, desperate fingers. “Here if you need it. But _only_ if you need it,” he adds, tapping her nose with the butt of the hilt.

She goes quiet, and he wonders, dimly, if he’s made a mistake. But then she’s grinning at him, eyes dark, fervent. “Have I mentioned that I love you?” she asks, reaching up, toying with the hairs at the nape of his neck.

His whole body goes hot, and he has the sense to hate himself for it—even her touches are innocent, the gentlest of things. “Not lately.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I love you. And I’m assuming you feel the same, though I’m pretty sure that’ll change once you meet my mom.”

“Pretty sure it won’t, actually.”

The taxi slows to a stop. Her eyes flick to something behind him, and she sighs, shoulders slumping. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

He doesn’t need to turn around to know what awaits them. So, instead, he gathers her hand in his, pressing his lips to the—unusually warm, he notes, though it’s probably just the adrenaline—skin. “It’s one night, Callie.”

No response.

“And I’ll be by your side the whole time.”

Finally, her eyes find his. “Promise?”

And again, the overwhelming desire to kiss her. He can only hope that dark, abandoned hall will present itself sooner rather than later. “Promise.”


	5. Desire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's this line in Rusk's recruitment mission if you're playing a knight ("Master Jedi, I haven't forgotten the last time we failed to strike at the Emperor. You're sure that didn't happen again?") and it kills? me?? Callie wasn't all that close with Rusk, but there's still this sense of companionship and familiarity and, like, _intimacy_ , which I think would freak her out, especially after being separated from her crew for so long. sure, Rusk knew her at one point in time, but she's changed so much since then, and the last thing she needs is for him to be all "I don't know who you are anymore," so she thinks, _maybe Theron can be my buffer!!_
> 
> poor kid (jk, he loves it)

When she’d asked him to go to Nar Shaddaa with her, he was more than a little surprised. Not because he hadn’t wanted to (he’s at the—somewhat self-effacing—point of literally jumping at the chance to spend time with her, even if it’s in the middle of a war zone, even if they’re both about to die), but—

 _Wouldn’t you rather be alone?_ It came out wrong. _Rusk was part of your crew for years. I just figured you’d want the reunion to be…_

She hadn’t responded. Not at first, anyway, which had led him to think he’d probably said something terribly wrong. But then he’d seen the look on her face—the nervous, anxious-ridden one, where her brows knit together and her lips kind of scrunch to one side; the one that makes his hands turn fists at his sides, not because she can’t protect herself, but because he, after all this time, still has this needy, irrational desire to punch anything that brings it out in her, even if it’s inanimate, even if it’s just her own anxiety.

 _It’s been six years_ , she’d said, finally. _For him, anyway, and I’m sure he’s changed a lot since I last saw him. And I doubt he’ll even recognize me. And I know you’re busy,_ she’d added, hurriedly, _so if you can’t, that’s fine. But I just thought that it might go smoother if you were… there…_

He’d understood. To a certain degree, anyway. Besides, it’s not like he was going to let her go it alone.

In all honesty, it went better than he thought it would. Callie’d been nervous. Doing that thing—that adorable, endearing thing—with the hand gestures and the quick, almost imperceptible pauses and the breathless, _like, you know, it’s just…_ But every once in a while, her eyes would find him, and something would shift, and she would, for the first time in a while, _breathe_.

They talked. Callie, shifting her weight from foot to foot, and Rusk—well, Theron wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the Provost Marshal’s reaction, which is probably the point.

(In all fairness, Callie had warned him. _He can be a bit… cold_ , she’d said, _and… heartless, I guess. Not that he doesn’t have a heart! He just has a hard time expressing his emotions._

To which he’d said, _Not everyone is as… emotionally in-tune with themselves as you are, Callie._

She’d laughed, then, the sound a quiet tinkling.)

In any case, he hadn’t needed the Force to feel the awkwardness between them, like an anvil, swaying dangerously over their heads.

She’d agreed to help. Which was fine by him—he may not be a spy for the Republic anymore, but that doesn’t mean a part of him isn’t still loyal to the fat, gasping slug, breathing its last, corrupt breaths.

So here they are, cruising through the filthy, neon-spattered streets of Nar Shaddaa. He’s just about to ask her if she wants to talk about it—he’s not exactly sure what he’ll say, but he’s found that he oftentimes doesn’t need to say much beyond _I’m here if you need me_ —when she slams on the brakes, hard. His breath is ripped from him, body jerking forward, vision swimming for an awful moment.

“Callie,” he groans, blinking. The strands of hair at the nape of her neck—dark, fraying—come into focus, and he reaches out, feeling for solidity. “Callie, what—”

“Sorry,” she huffs. She sounds far away. “Just stay here, okay? Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

She hops off the speeder, scurrying across the street, heading for the lilting piles of garbage around the edges of a nearby residential—if he can even call it that—plaza. Holographic trees dot the artificial green, casting the lawn in a watery, purple-blue light.

He notices the girl, then, face streaked with—dirt, and sweat, and Force knows what else. She’s kneeling beside one of the piles, digging, elbows caked with slime and grease. And there’s Callie, coming up behind her, arms outstretched. Palms outward, placating.

There’s a softness to the way Callie moves, even when she’s in combat, and it’s not just the Force moving through her, like a conduit. It’s something all her own—an awareness, maybe, but subconscious, of her own body: how it slices fluidly through parcels of space. But this is different. This is an intentional kind of self-violence: the way she folds in on herself, making herself smaller. More approachable. Less… terrifying, he supposes, though it’s hard to think of her as anything but kind.

The girl looks at Callie, and Theron recognizes the fight in her—the need to run, pumping through her calves. But she stays, and Callie crouches beside her, and they stay that way for a long while. Talking, probably, though he can’t know for sure.

For a moment, his vision shifts. Callie, legs folded beneath her, a child sitting on her lap. Dark hair. Dark eyes— _his_ eyes, he realizes, with a strange kind of detachment. A twist of desire, deep in his gut. Not something he lets himself consider—partially out of habit, partially out of necessity—but every once in a while, he’ll look at her, and the future’ll spear through him, as tangible as an exit wound. What could’ve been, in another life.

What could be, if both of them manage to survive this.

“Theron?”

Her voice. Soft, questioning, filtered through his cybernetics.

“Sorry,” he says, and the vision fades—out of reach, like always. He has the sense to feel regret, and maybe a touch of grief. “What’s up?”

“Do me a favor? Bring me a couple of the non-perishables we gave Hylo and her crew. They’re in that bag hanging behind you—no, not that one. Not that one, either. Getting closer. The one to your left—there you go.” A pause. “Actually, grab as many as you can.” And then the feed goes quiet, and there’s nothing but static, broken by the occasional snippet of an advertisement, probably broadcasted over the planetary network.

He has to laugh, really. He’d always thought this stuff was junk—relics from her years as a wanderer, before she’d joined the Order: lanterns, a couple of miscellaneous (seemingly detached, though now he suspects differently) poles, bedrolls, fringed leather bags. Now he knows it’s just a front for all the goods she’s been distributing, probably under the nose of everyone in the Alliance. Including him.

He grabs as many as he can before crossing the street. She meets him halfway, practically tripping over herself in her haste to reach him. “This’ll only take a minute,” she says, taking the meals, struggling to balance all of them at once. One of them falls to the ground, and she sighs, hanging her head. “Would you get… thanks.” A pause. She glances over her shoulder. “I’d have you bring them over, but I… don’t think she trusts you.”

His eyes cut to the girl, who flinches under his gaze, pressing herself against the ground. His mouth opens, but what comes out is nothing like he thought it’d be. “I don’t blame her.”

“Yeah,” says Callie. There’s a sadness, there, clinging to the surface of her skin. “Nar Shaddaa isn’t the best place for kids.”

This coming from the woman who opened a rehabilitation center in the Red Light sector, all in her spare time. It’s easy to forget that, and he’s not sure why. And again, that desire—for a different life, yes, but also just for _her_.

Stepping closer, he presses a kiss to her forehead. She lets out a small, happy sound, and he smiles against her skin. “Take your time,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

She pulls away, just enough to look at him—just enough to gauge the sincerity of his statement. It takes a moment, but eventually, her face breaks out in that sunny smile of hers, and his mouth twitches instinctually in response. Bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet, she pecks him on the lips. “Thank you.”

He watches her go. Thinking, dimly, of that dark-haired, dark-eyed child, and feeling a warmth blossom, as inescapable as his love for her—perhaps, even, for them both.


	6. Amusement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sequel to [this drabble](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10552674/chapters/23308736)!!!!! lots of fluff, maybe slightly OOC, but I wanted to give the kids a break ~ enjoy!!

He’s going back for seconds—he’s really rather glad that Lana decided to stay on Odessen: it’s not often that he and Callie are alone together, even if they _are_ surrounded by the Alderaanian elite; besides, it lets him eat as much puff cake as he wants, free of judgment—when—

“Theron.”

He stops. Cocks his head to one side, tapping the implant near his temple. The villa’s choked with guests—mostly Alderaanian nobles, with the occasional offworlder—so the noise is overwhelming at best, unbearable at worst. But that’s where the cybernetics come in handy, filtering through the disembodied conversations, searching for keywords, familiar voices. Most of them were programmed by his SIS handler, once upon a time, but he’s added some since then, tuning the sensors to Callie’s voice.

(She hadn’t understood. Not at first, anyway.

 _This is kinda creepy, Theron_ , she’d said, fiddling with the mic he’d clipped to the collar of her shirt. _I mean, I love you, but I don’t think I want your cybernetics to recognize my voice. That’s bordering on, like, obsessive._

 _And if we get separated somehow?_ he’d asked, quirking a brow. _What then?_

 _Then we let the power of our love bring us back together. Duh._ )

The overlay flashes, there then gone: _VOICEPRINT 99.7% MATCH: CALDIS MAE ELANNE, COMMANDER OF THE ETERNAL ALLIANCE. PINPOINTING LOCATION IN 30… 29… 28…_

So he waits.

Someone brushes past him—an elderly woman, as far as he can tell, though he’s learned several times this evening that not even a spy (and a damn good one, at that) should guess someone’s age—and there’s a hand on his elbow. He looks down, tries not to blanch. Withered fingers. Bones crooked, bent, like they’ve been set wrong.

“Save a dance for me,” she says, grinning. He finds himself wondering how Callie managed to turn out the way she did—shy, uncertain, always toeing a crack in the ground. Everyone’s so _forward_ , here. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Thinks, dimly, that Lana would enjoy the hell out of this. Callie, too, if she were anywhere to be found.

“My dance card’s full,” he starts to say, but the woman’s gone. He tries to find her in the crowd, but—

“ _Theron_.”

Louder, this time. His implant whirs to life, again, scrolling across his field of vision: _VOICEPRINT 100% MATCH … PINPOINTING LOCATION …_. Which turns out to be unnecessary, because there’s yet _another_ hand on his elbow, only this time he recognizes it—long, slender fingers, nails bare, cuticles rubbed red-raw. They curl against his sleeve, bunching the fabric, and suddenly he’s being pulled into a kind of alcove—

Callie’s here. Somewhere, anyway. There’s a curtain behind him, blocking the runny rays of light, probably coming from the glittering white chandeliers of the ballroom.

He reaches out, nearly knocks the jut of her chin. “There you—”

A hand, covering his mouth. She shushes him. “They’ll hear you.”

He makes a sound, deep in his throat, but Callie shakes her head. After a moment, the overlay flashes, beeping softly in his ear: _HYPOXIA IN 1 MIN 2, 1 MIN 1, 60_ …

Her fingers curl against his jaw, brushing the corner of his mouth. His lips purse, just slightly, and he imagines he’s pressing a kiss there. When she pulls away, there’s a sheepishness to the way she does it—appled cheeks, shoulders curling in on themselves. _Scandalized_ , he thinks, and bites back a laugh. Only Callie.

Eventually, her hands move—touching his lapels, his forearms, the collar of his shirt. “Hi,” she says, and it’s the quietest thing. His heart swells with unexpected love.

She is small against him, soft where he is hard. And, really, there’s nothing scandalous about this moment. He thinks, dimly, of Valkorion, and the nights she’d spent a kind of half-moon, jerking fitfully atop his bedsheets. The way she’d curled against him, hands peeling tiny fists, whaling the cool-conditioned air. Even before the nightmares, they’d been like this, tangled in each other. Only this time there’s no noose. No chance of strangulation. Just party favors, and the quiet clinking of glassware.

Still, this feels… unprecedented. He supposes it has something to do with her mother. The familiarity of the grounds, with the flayed rosebuds; the perfectly-trimmed, well-watered grass.

“Hey,” he says. He presses against her, into her, and she stumbles backward, just a step. His arms move to her waist, the small of her back, palming the fabric there. It slides against his skin—velvety, erratic. “Hiding?”

She nods. Her eyes flick to something behind him, and there’s fear there, but not the fear he’s used to seeing. For the first time in years, she’s not fighting fate, or the Force, or an empire. Just her mother. A life she left behind. “I don’t want to go back out there.”

He remembers something about a dark, abandoned hall. “Me either.”

“So we’re in agreement.”

He lifts a hand. Tugs her lip from between her teeth. She looks up at him, blinking. Mouth ticking upward, the smallest of smiles, and— _stars_ , he really wants to kiss her.

She seems to catch on, because her eyes drop to his mouth. And his body—hot, again, like before, except this time he doesn’t feel like he’s about to be lit on fire. So he curls his fingers around her jaw, under her chin. Tilting her head up, up, meeting her gaze—dark, but it’s always dark; he always feels like he’s tripping into some depthless spring—and his lips part—

Her hand finds his. And then she _tugs_.

“Not here.” He almost doesn’t catch it over the swell of laughter, bleeding through the curtain. “Follow me.”

She’s gone before he can stop her. And he follows, of course—she has his hand, after all, and whatever else is connected to it. She leads him through lushly-decorated halls, with oil paintings and marble busts. The walls are paneled, the wood stained a dark, rich color, and the chandeliers he’d spotted earlier—armed with tiny white candles—stretch their shadows. There are doors everywhere, and he half-expects her to choose one at random, so long as it locks from the inside. But no.

Callie knows _exactly_ where she’s going.

He tries to remember the route they take— _left, then right, right, another right, left_ —but he loses track somewhere around the second flight of stairs, and instead focuses on the slightness of her hand. The way it rests in his, wrist exposed to him, pale against his brown skin.

By the time they stop, the party is nothing but a murmur, rumbling beneath their feet. The door before them is nothing special. But the way she reaches for the doorknob—

“Is this your room?” He doesn’t have to ask. But he does anyway.

She nods. Takes a breath. “I haven’t been in here in—”

“A decade,” he finishes, squeezing her hand. He knows. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Callie. There’s dozens of other—”

“Will it weird you out?” Her voice is soft. Small. It shudders in his grasp, or maybe that’s her hand, snarled with his own. “If we make out in my old room?”

He huffs a laugh. At the proposition, yes, but also at her use of ‘make out’. “I can’t say I’ve really thought about it.” But now that he has, he can’t seem to stop. “You’re not a hoarder, are you?”

“What?!” She whirls to face him. Her dress rustles, and the sound is magnified in the long, narrow hall. He winces, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean, there’s probably some books—”

“Callie.”

She shoves at his shoulder, but the gesture is weak, her wrists limp. “Theron.”

“ _Callie_ ,” he says, again, and she softens—just enough for him to reach behind her, twist the doorknob, push the door open. There’s a creaking sound, and a breath catches in his throat. But after a moment of silence, he pushes again, and Callie’s walking backward, tugging him with her.

He’s not exactly sure what he’d been expecting. Lace, maybe. Ruffles. Bookcases, of course. So he can’t necessarily say he’s surprised, because he sees all those things—to an extreme. Pink, and pink, and yet even _more_ pink, offset by creamy whites, dusty shades of lavender. He doesn’t know where to look. And, unfortunately, it shows.

“It’s bad.” She’s standing next to him, now. Nudging closer, pressing her face against his shoulder. “I know. You don’t have to say anything.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries to imagine Callie— _his_ Callie—but smaller. Tamer, though it’s hard to envision her as anything but wild.

“It’s—” What?

“Ridiculous.” She makes a cruel, keening sound. “I can’t believe she…— It doesn’t even look like it’s been _touched_.”

“Well,” he says, driven by some alternate version of himself, with attentive, adoring parents. “This _was_ all they had left of you.”

She mumbles something unintelligible, and he pulls his eyes from a strange, eldritch-looking doll head, sitting primly on the edge of a vanity. She’s still standing next to him, only now her arms are looped around her middle, and his hand is smarting with sudden, inexcusable absence.

“Callie,” he says, gently. And he tries—really, he does—but the laughter comes anyway, scrabbling at the insides of his throat. “It’s—”

“Awful.” She pulls away, just enough to enunciate. “Humiliating.”

“A little girl’s bedroom.” His hand finds hers. She resists, at first—one of her tiny fists, again, bunching the fabric at her waist—but he’s insistent, and eventually her palm opens to him. “And, believe it or not, you were a little girl, once. Probably a cute one, too, though I’m really hoping you didn’t make a habit of playing with that doll head.”

He waits, expectant. And finally he’s rewarded—a small laugh, one he can tease, one he can coax open. “It’s a family heirloom.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She shifts, presses closer. After a moment, she lifts her head, propping her chin on his shoulder. His body _hums_ , fuller than fulfillment. A snake eating its own tail. “Now you know why Rhyss turned out the way she did.”

He tries to imagine the Mirialan here, but fails. “I’m more interested in how you turned out,” he says. “Which is pretty damn good, if I do so say myself.”

She doesn’t say anything. Not for a while, anyway, but it doesn’t really bother him. She’ll return, eventually, but not until she unpacks the compliment, processes it, comes to terms with it—as she always does.

Finally, she exhales. Presses a kiss to his shoulder, the crook of his neck, the line of his jaw. His hands move to her waist, but she skitters away, dancing nimbly from his grasp. “So how do you feel about the whole ‘making out’ thing?” A pause. Her voice is light. “Yes, no, maybe?”

He has to laugh. He’s done his fair share of slinking around—parties _are_ the perfect cover—but there was always a mission involved, or a target: recover stolen documents, destroy incriminating evidence, the like. Never before has ‘kissing’ been his highest priority.

But, he supposes, that’s what Callie’s done to him. He looks at her—twisting her fingers in the skirt of her dress; pale, yet strangely flushed—and can hardly remember what his life was like before this, before her. And does it matter, really? He struggles to think of a place in the Galaxy he’d rather be, even with all the… pink, the ruffles, the cream-tinted lace. Struggles to think of a single person he’d rather be with, even his parents, which—well, there was a time he’d do anything to capture his parents’ attention, fleeting as it was. Unsatisfying, really, in the long run.

“If this is… you know, weird, we can check out Rhyss’ old room,” Callie is saying, bouncing on the balls of her feet, hands clasped behind her back. Still, he notes, out of reach. “I mean, she’ll never forgive me, but it’s not like she needs to know.”

She smiles, then. And again, that swelling. He can’t remember the last time he loved someone like this. He wonders, dimly, if he ever even has.

“How do you feel about it?” he asks, finally. It’s her room, after all. She’s the one who’s fidgeting.

“Theron,” she sighs.

“Callie,” he returns.

“I just really want to kiss you.” The words melt, slush, pool between them. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since we left Pallista. But then we were in the taxi, and then there was, you know, my mom, and the guests, and…”

He moves. One step, two steps, three, and she’s stumbling, the backs of her knees colliding with the bed. Her hand flashes out, grabbing one of his lapels, pulling him with her. The impact’s negligible, but they still bounce a bit, the mattress squeaking beneath them. Callie exhales, the air hot, heavy. Still, almost, yet not quite.

There is silence for a moment. Then, “Well. _That_ didn’t go as planned.”

He chuckles. Pulls his face from the crook of her neck. And, to exactly no one’s surprise, she’s grinning, tongue caught between her teeth. “Are you trying to seduce me, Master Jedi?”

She quirks a brow. “And if I was? And don’t call me that,” she adds, as an afterthought, slapping him lightly across the chest.

“Then clearly you’re not who you say you are, because the Callie _I_ know—”

“Maybe the Callie you know got tired of waiting for a _certain someone_ —” and now she pokes his shoulder— “to kiss her.”

“So impatient,” he says, clicking his tongue. But he still nuzzles the space between her neck and shoulder, pressing a kiss there, nipping lightly at her pulse-point. “You must’ve been an awful Jedi.”

She hums. Carding her fingers through his hair, tracing the implant near his temple. Her nails scratch lightly, teasingly, over the skin there, and he almost wonders if he should up his game—but then he feels her shudder, and he realizes, suddenly, how desperate she is to retain control. “It’s all Kira’s fault.”

He smirks, amused. “Putting the blame on someone else. Nice.”

“I learned from the best. But _seriously_ , Theron,” she huffs, wriggling out from underneath him. “Will you just kiss me already? My mom’s gonna realize I’m missing, you know, and this is the first place she’ll look, which means we have a limited amount of time—”

She never does finish that sentence.


	7. Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY IN ADVANCE FOR THE ANGST
> 
> also I'm sorry if my writing's weird??? I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately (and by a lot I mean one, notably _Stardust_ by Neil Gaiman), so I'm obsessed with rhythm and how things sound when read aloud
> 
> spoilers for KOTFE, ch. XV ~

“You’re still up.”

She hadn’t felt him approach. Though she supposes that’s a good thing—after all, she came here to numb that throbbing part of her, the woken limb she cannot seem to silence.

The Force writhes inside her. Bucks, desperate to feel his presence. After so much denial, her senses want one thing, and one thing only: to drown. And who better to drown in? The temptation to lose herself remains, strong as ever.

She slips from Soresu. Loosens her grip on the staff. Her palms slide against the polished wood, and she almost finds herself missing the roughened bark of her training ‘saber, splintering against her skin. The pain had served as a kind of reminder. But this? This thing, so new, so easy to forget. If Valkorion wasn’t around to tie her to her body—and, she reminds herself, he _isn’t_ anymore—she might just fade away, seething through her skin.

She turns. Theron’s there, leaning against the doorway.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says, and it’s not a lie.

“Did you try those sleeping pills?”

“No,” she says, and it’s a lie. She doesn’t like pills. They’ve never really worked for her, to Doc’s dismay, who is oddly obsessed with them.

( _Was_ , she thinks, dimly. _Was_ obsessed.)

“Drugs don’t agree with me,” she continues. Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth, either.

He looks at her. And she considers the truth— _Rhyss was an addict, you know, and, like, I know drugs can be useful, but I only ever associate them with death_ —but the words don’t come, which isn’t all that surprising. She feels like she hasn’t said anything of importance in, stars, Force knows how long. When was the last time she said anything but _do it_ , or _great idea_ , or _be safe_?

He’s still looking at her. She swallows, turning her back to him. “Why are you still up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Theron says. And he says it like she did, with that kind of purposefulness, like they both know it’s more than just an inability to sleep. But that’s how they’ve always done things. They never talk about the Mynock in the room.

She’s thought about it, though. How she’d go about bringing it up. _Hey, remember that Senator I inadvertently killed?_ Or _I thought I could save him, Theron. I’m sorry, Theron. Do you hate me, Theron?_ But nothing feels right. Nothing feels like something she’d say.

The silence is insufferable. So she strikes out, hitting the dummy with the butt of the staff. It’s a decent blow—if the dummy were a living, breathing thing, it’d soon be a headless one; in her mind’s eye, she sees the blood spray: a dark red curtain, settling over the scene—and the shock travels through her. And it must be a side effect of being in carbonite for so long, because her body takes it greedily. One big, yawning gulp.

He’s seen her fight before. And, if she remembers correctly, he’s seen her train before. So there’s nothing particularly special about this—at least, there shouldn’t be—but she still feels vaguely on-display. Like she’s somehow performing for him. Like she still has something to prove to someone somewhere, and the thought frightens her. Shouldn’t she be done with this by now?

Doneness. Completion. She struggles to wrap her mind around it. Done with what, and when? And what lies beyond doneness? It feels rather like a line. One of those ever-receding ones, and so she chases it, and so it leads her onward, onward—

“Can we talk?” And there’s a seriousness to the way he says it—a solemnity, one she feels like she never hears. Theron doesn’t _talk_. And when he does, it’s never because he _wants_ to. It’s because she has something to say; because she’s nervous, anxious, and there’s no other way for her to expel all that energy. So she doesn’t know what to do with that, that request. Talk about what? And why?

It occurs to her—briefly, in that small realm of fear and paranoia—that perhaps he’s breaking up with her. The thought is a paralyzing one. No one’s ever broken up with her before. Is there some sort of protocol? Is she allowed to cry? She suddenly feels like crying—an unbearable weight, pressing in on her, fingers pressed to the column of her throat.

She opens her mouth. _Please don’t break up with me_ , she wants to say, but doesn’t, only because she might end up putting the idea in his head. “What about?”

He must not know. Or he must not want to say it aloud, because he shifts, shoving his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

When was the last time she held his hand? She doesn’t remember. Before Senator Cordan, maybe. Before SCORPIO’s betrayal, which in itself seems forever ago. She feels like she’s lived a dozen other lives since then, each with its own particular ache. Even now, they live in her body, festering in the trunk of her.

“I’m worried,” Theron says.

She strikes out, again, but she’s not exactly paying attention anymore. The swing flies wide. “Oh.”

“About you,” he adds.

“Oh.”

“I feel like—” He pauses, stares at something past her. She almost wishes he would always do this—disembodiment is, in a way, easier to deal with. Less of herself to get in the way.

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He frowns. And her hands—which are currently gripping the body of her staff, flexing, restless—now, overtaken by the desire to—reach out, cup his cheek, smooth the frown away.

“Then I can’t help you.”

“I know.”

He pushes himself off the wall. Her body is wrecked with sweat—and it’s not even the good kind, the kind that follows a battle or a sparring match—and she fights the urge to shield herself somehow. There’s a towel she could grab, hanging from a hook on the far wall. She could dry herself off, at least, mop the sheen from her face. But that would require her to move, and moving means drawing attention to herself, and attention means Theron. And she can’t have that. So she shifts, trying to ease the anxiety, the pent-up tension, from her muscles.

There’s nothing predatory about it, the way he circles her. He’s not exercising his power. But she still settles into Form V, the staff a ‘saber in her hands. He follows her, her movements, with his eyes, and that simple fact—he’s never seen her go through the forms before, and so has never borne witness to the space she occupies, which is so often outside herself; in these moments, surrounded by the Force, she is nothing but an inhabitant of her physical body—is… electrifying.

She counts the forms in her head. One, two, three, and if she focuses, she can almost hear Orgus’ voice: _You cannot sustain Ataru forever. Choose your forms wisely._ And so she shifts, bouncing from Soresu to Niman, back to Ataru, a Makashi finish.

She thought she’d forgotten. And perhaps her mind did. Five years is a long time, and yet, her body—this awful, rugged thing, with all its scars; she remembers her fight with Valkorion, the long trek through the jungle of Dromund Kaas, and shudders, because of course her body remembers it, that hot slice of burning plasma—retains the knowledge. Like taking a breath. Inhale, exhale, a slow release.

“Callie,” Theron says. Nothing more. Nothing but her name.

She’s not on Odessen anymore. She’s on Tython, and there are initiates in the background. Everything is dappled, rosy, strangely bewitching. A leaf falls, swishes, lands on her shoulder. Lightsabers hum, just out of reach, and suddenly Orgus is here—presence unmistakable; keeping her sharp, keen.

 _Shii-Cho,_ she thinks, _Makashi, Soresu. One, then two, then four. Djem So. There is no emotion—_

Her foot slips. The vision breaks, reality bleeding through some small crack. She’s on Odessen. Her ‘saber—the one she’d crafted at the Forge, Teeseven standing watch—is gone, and its place, a new thing. Imbued with the Force, yes, but not the Force she knows: there is light, but darkness, too. Her skin chars at the touch of the hilt, which is why it’s clipped to her belt. Which is why she’s training with a staff, the wood unwieldy, smelling of smoke and pine.

She wavers. Switches from Djem So to Juyo. The transition is jerky, unpolished, and the staff tumbles from her grasp, clattering against the grated floor.

Her cheeks are burning. Theron leans forward, makes a move for the staff, but she’s closer, faster. Their hands bump together—awkward, fumbling.

“Callie,” he says, again. And there’s so much in that, in the way he says her name— _look at me_ , or _I miss you_ , or maybe just _please_.

“I’m out of practice.”

“Didn’t look that way to me.”

But he doesn’t see her at 2 a.m., hair piled atop her head, white-knuckling the hilt of her ‘saber—not the new thing, but her old one, with its chipped black finish. He doesn’t see her at 11 p.m., pacing the length of the _Defender_ , trying to coax tiredness into the palm of her hand. He doesn’t even see her on the battlefield, because there are no battlefields these days. At least, not the kind she’s used to.

His hand moves, and before she can pull away, he’s touching her. And it hurts. And her skin gives way, leaving peels, leaving great, charred husks.

“Callie.” He sounds desperate. “Where are you?”

 _Tython_ , but that’s where she wants to be, not where she is. _Odessen_ , but she doesn’t really feel… present. Her body’s here, but her mind’s Force knows where—stuck, probably, in one of Valkorion’s traps, clamped between durasteel jaws. A creature of prey, dying a kind of death. _The Eternal Fleet._

She hears it, then, like she does every night, cooped up in the _Defender_ ’s tiny—but empty; stars, everything’s so _empty_ without her crew—cockpit: _I want a reason. Why did you let Senator Cordan die?_ And her mouth opens, like it always does, only this time nothing comes out. And Theron leaves. And he doesn’t come back, and she ends up here, like she always does: gripping the staff, watching Theron grip her.

“I don’t know.” It comes out haltingly. “I don’t…”

Silence.

His fingers move, searching blindly for her pulse. And when he finds it—the inside of her wrist, with its thin, pale flesh—he holds it, pinched between thumb and forefinger. It’s an awful moment, and part of her thinks he’s about to leave. But he stays. Of course he does. And so she stares at their hands, where their hands touch, where brown meets pale pink.

“Theron,” she starts, eventually, but he cuts her off.

“We’ll find you.” He lifts his head, looks at her—and the seriousness she’d seen before, while there, has been replaced with something kinder. For the first time in a while, Caldis feels… warm.

She nods.

“I promise,” adds Theron. “We’ll find you, Callie.”

She hasn’t felt all that knowable lately. But there’s not a bone in her body that doubts this, doubts him. So she nods again.

When Theron smiles, it is with the peeking sun of early morning.


	8. Soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone asked for more of [this prompt](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10552674/chapters/24305718) so I thought, what the hell, why not. enjoy the angst-come-fluff!!!
> 
> set pre-KOTET, pre-ch. XVI of KOTFE, probably a week or two after Theron walks in on Callie training ~

He trips over her body, and in the darkness of the _Defender_ —sometimes she’ll find Teeseven in the engine room, powered down, charging, and it’ll remind her just how full the ship used to be, with Kira in the cockpit, Doc in the medbay, Scourge staring mournfully at nothing in particular—breathes, “Karkin’ hell.”

It’s not really her fault. He should’ve seen her. But it’s not entirely his fault, either—it’s not like she has a habit of lying on the floor of an empty ship, hands interlinked somewhere near her sternum, feet bare and uncomfortably cold. “Theron?”

Silence. Then, “Callie.”

She winces. “Hi?”

“What are you—” He sighs, then. Shifts, and the grated floor of the _Defender_ —which really isn’t all that comfortable; it digs into her back, chafes against the cybernetics knitted to the column of her spine—groans beneath him. She doesn’t remember that happening before, back when things were… normal, and so she chalks it up to age, the years she spent beyond the veil. “Never mind.”

There’s an outline, vaguely. A splash of red—his jacket. Something curved, smoking in her mind’s eye—his blasters, which he’s taken to carrying with him, even when they’re on Odessen. A green light, blinking, sporadic—his cybernetics, ringing the shell of his ear, teasing the corner of his eye.

Her fingers twitch. It’s a regular occurrence, these days, but she still lets the pain tug. She doesn’t remember the last time she touched him. Doesn’t remember the last time he let her touch him, and yet, even now, her body knows him. The Force inside her, eagerly recognizing the Force inside him—even though it’s dormant, like a vestige. A skeleton gnawed clean.

The light bobs. He’s moving towards her, and she immediately pulls her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees. He doesn’t take up that much room, and even if he did, it’s not like she would mind. But she still makes space for him, even now.

“Teeseven said you’d be here.” He speaks carefully. His words are measured.

“Snitch,” she says, but it lacks… something. Maybe everything. Nothing she says feels real anymore, and that’s only part of the issue.

“He didn’t want to give you up.”

“Sure he didn’t.”

“Really,” says Theron, settling beside her. His legs are long, longer than she remembers them being. “I had to hack a couple of firewalls.”

She doubts that’s true. Teeseven is loyal—more so, perhaps, than she deserves. But he is also a stubborn thing, with a terrifyingly accurate ability to pinpoint her sadnesses: where they nest, where they make their home. When he’d found her in the _Defender_ one night, curled in Kira’s old chair, he’d beeped disapprovingly: _T7 = stay with Jedi // T7 = not let Jedi be alone._ So she struggles to imagine Teeseven’s reluctance to surrender her location.

She doesn’t say that, though. She just… nods. And Theron, whose body is pressed so firmly against her own, falls silent.

Every once in a while, the _Defender_ will creak. And that—that’s why she sleeps here, most nights. Sometimes in her old room, sprawled across the bed, but usually in the cockpit, feet propped against the console. She wakes up sore, stiff, her body wearied. But it’s worth it, because she feels seventeen again, sleeping at the foot of that great, star-littered expanse.

If Theron asks, that’s what she’ll tell him. _I wanted to feel young again._ Which is true, to a certain extent. She misses the early days, back before she joined the Order, when Alderaan was the thing to run from—not Valkorion, or Ziost, or even just the Empire. It was all so easy then, just her and the _Hard Luck_ , chained to nothing. Now she’s lost track of the things she’s chained to.

Maybe that’s why she sleeps in the _Defender_. Why she hadn’t wanted anyone, even Teeseven, to know. There are things buried here. Things she shouldn’t try to resurrect, and yet she does, the words a prayer in her godless mouth: _Please bring them back. Please._ Sometimes she thinks she’s praying to the Force, that bundle of light deep inside her, but the Force never listens. And shouldn’t she be used to that by now? If the Force was capable of listening—if the Force was capable of turning her prayers into something more substantial, through alchemy or magic or something else altogether—wouldn’t it have done something about Ziost?

The conclusion she’s come to is one of necessity: The Force simply does not care.

She shifts, digging short nails into the skin of her stomach. She wishes he would say something. She wishes _she_ would say something, but when she opens her mouth—and open her mouth she does—nothing comes out, nothing but a breathy sigh.

This, she thinks, is her fault. She must’ve spent her words early on in their relationship, and now they have nothing left to talk about, nothing but—

“I’m sorry.” So it’s death on the agenda, it seems. And not her own, though she almost wishes it was—it’d certainly make things easier.

He’s the one who shifts this time. And it’s to look at her, only now he’s lying on his side, touching her elbow. It’s such a simple, innocent thing. He doesn’t mean anything by it, only that they’ve always done this—ever since that moment in the Slippery Slopes, when she’d looked up antonyms of amicable and he’d told her, in no uncertain terms, that her datapad was a piece of shit. It used to be a relief, touching him, the rare occasion he’d touch her, because there was never any violence in it. But now—

She swallows. Tries to direct the Force elsewhere, away from that place of joining—but her vision tunnels, till there’s nothing but her and him and his hand, her and him and the awful way he touches her, with knowledge and familiarity.

“Callie.”

 _Look at me_ , he’s saying. And she wants to—when was the last time she really looked at him, really took it all in: the beginning of a wrinkle near his right eye, the grooved edge of a cybernetic implant near his left temple—but she knows she won’t come back from that. She knows it’ll be over the moment she lifts her head, and… she can’t let that happen, because there’s something she needs to say, and her body won’t rest till it’s out and there and _gone_.

“Callie,” he says, again. And his fingers move from her elbow to her neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth. And she sits up, shrugging the touch off, shoving the _meaning_ of the touch—that knowledge, that familiarity—far, far away.

“I’m sorry.” The words are blunt. They sit oppressively on her tongue. “I’m… sorry.”

He sits up. Turns to face her, and his hand—the one with the irregularly-shaped knuckle, because apparently he broke the finger too many times in too many bar fights for it to heal correctly; the one with the puckered remnants of a burn, because he fell asleep at his desk one time and knocked a glass of steaming hot caf over—his _damn hand_ , remains. Twitching. Nothing short of a caress. “Why are you sorry?”

She made a list. So she sucks in a breath. “Because—” and she has to refuse his touch, because how the hell else is she supposed to count on her fingers?— “I’m a mess! Because I’m an awful leader, because I keep forgetting to sign off on the requisition form for the next batch of food processor control chips, because Senya’s expecting me to try and redeem her son and all I can think about is everything he took from me, because—”

“Callie…”

Is that all he can say? Her name? “I killed him, Theron.” Something cracks inside her, then, oozing through her fingers—viscous, sticky. Spoiled and rotten. “I _killed him_. And I didn’t mean to. I thought could save them all. But I still made the choice, the choice to put the Republic last, because I didn’t want to seem partial even though I very clearly _am_ , and now someone’s _dead_ , someone with a life, someone who _believed_ in me and _trusted_ me and they _shouldn’t_. None of you should put your trust in me, but you _just_ — _keep_ — _doing_ — _it_ —”

He reaches out. And it occurs to her, dimly, that he’s gripping her wrists—that she’s bucking against his hold on her, like maybe she was striking him at one point. Like maybe she was whaling on him with tiny, vibrating fists. “ _Caldis_ ,” he says, and it’s—

Her full name. She can’t remember the last time he said her full name. Carrick Station? Manaan? In any case, her body reacts, shying away. “Let me go.”

“No.”

“Theron,” she starts, tugging, but he holds fast. “Theron, _please_.” And it’s ridiculous, but there’s a quaver in her voice. She doesn’t like restraints. They remind her of Vitiate, those long months in the Emperor’s fortress, taints poking at her exposed brain. She remembers boarding the _Defender_ at the end of it all, standing in the doorway to her room, tracing the cuts on her wrists. The chafe-marks, clearly the result of electrocuffs, dripping blood and pus.

“Callie.” He’s begging her, now. She blinks, hard, looking away. “Please just _listen_ to me.”

She doesn’t know how. That’s what it comes down to, really. All the fight has drained out of her, but the disconnect—it remains, like his hand, like his hand on her neck, her jaw, now the tender joints of her inner wrists.

“I’m so tired.” Her eyes are stinging. She lifts a hand, tries to wipe the tears away, but this time, he’s faster. Or maybe just more determined. Does it really matter? All she feels is the throbbing of his pulse, which has somehow traveled down his arm, into his palm. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Theron.”

“None of us do.”

She gives a small, pained laugh. “You’re in your element—”

“I wouldn’t say _that_.”

“And Lana’s thriving,” she adds, because it’s true. “This is what you were born to do. Both of you. And you know it.”

“Callie.” But it’s different than any of the other times he’s said her name. It’s more… malleable. Like she could lean forward, kiss him, tug it right out of his mouth, and the only thing it would do is writhe contentedly in her hand. “We’re only here because of you. And before you start shaking your head, hear me out.” A pause. “I’m not saying Lana and I wouldn’t be part of the Alliance if you weren’t the Commander. But I can guarantee we wouldn’t be as—” Another pause. There is silence for a long moment. “We’re here because we believe in you. Not because we trust the Alliance, not because we want to see Zakuul fall, but because we believe in _you_ , in what you stand for.”

And here he cups her cheeks. Gently, gently, and her body reacts again, only this time it’s a kind of softening. She leans into it, just enough to remember what it’s like to be held by him, what it’s like to know violence and yet turn in the opposite direction.

“You have to be strong for the rest of us. And I know you’re getting tired, but you are doing _so well_.” The way he says it—with that touch of pride, like Orgus always used to.

“But he died.” ( _I’m sorry._ )

“I know,” says Theron.

“I was trying to be a commander,” she says. “I was trying to be someone worth—” she gestures to their surroundings, and it’s just the _Defender_ she’s referring to, but part of her means all of it: Odessen, the Alliance, even Koth’s _Gravestone_ — “all this.”

“You _are_ , Callie.” ( _It’s okay._ ) “Am I biased? Probably, yes.” His lips twitch. And, after a moment, so do hers. “But we wouldn’t have named you Commander if you weren’t the right person for the job.”

“But—” ( _Do you hate me?_ )

“Callie.” He touches the corner of her mouth. It brings a smile there—fleeting, but a smile all the same. ( _How can you even ask that?_ ) “C’mon.”

“I’m serious.”

“I can tell. You have this little wrinkle, right—” he pokes her forehead, the space between her brows— “there.” He looks at her, then. Inhales, exhales. “You know I love you, right?”

Her breath catches in her throat. And though it’s happened before, it feels like a novelty, the way the Galaxy narrows—smaller than a pinpoint, yet strangely encompassing everything of import. “What?”

“I love you,” he says, again. Blinking, like he can’t believe he said it aloud. And it’s not like she imagined it—for some reason, she’s always wearing a dress in her fantasies, and they’re always on some sort of dance floor—but he thumbs her lower lip. And her mouth opens to him, breaths coming fast, shallow. Her cheeks feel unbearably warm. “You know that, right?”

She wants to say _no, not really, I’ve only been waiting for you to say that for months now_ , but all that comes out is, “We’re pretty bad at this, aren’t we?”

He laughs. And he doesn’t feel so far away, now, the distance swallowed by—this, and him, and them. “Kind of.”

“I don’t care.” She reaches up, up, covering his hand with her own. And he pulls her closer, and their knees bump together, a tangle of limbs and legs. “I love you, Theron. I’m not wearing a dress and I’m pretty sure we’d die if we tried to slow dance right now but I don’t care, ‘cause I love you, I love you, I love—”

His mouth descends. And the softness there is finally— _blessedly_ —enough.


	9. Last Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, once upon a time, I reblogged a kiss meme. and I'm way too lazy to go through my archives in search of it, but that's OKAY, bc this prompt has been TORTURING ME ever since my bff sent it to me!! I'm PRETTY sure it was "last kiss," which is... absolutely evil, imho
> 
> this is... 100% an AU, in that Callie doesn't... die. but! I will say that, canonically, Callie does occasionally drop by the rehabilitation clinic she started on Nar Shaddaa, and Theron usually comes with her. so do with that what you will :~)
> 
> CW DEATH CW DEATH CW DEATH

She doesn’t notice the blood till everyone’s dead.

It wasn’t a fair fight, really. And if she were anywhere else in the Galaxy, they might’ve given up when the leader of their gang fell to the street with an awful, deadening sound. But this is Nar Shaddaa, and survival requires a kind of scrappiness—one that often leads to needless slaughter. And besides, what was she supposed to do? Leave? Pretend she hadn’t noticed the thugs materializing from the gritty shadows, coalescing on the young girl?

She escaped, in the end. Which, Callie thinks, is the only thing that matters. She’d noticed the child’s shadow as she scampered away, headless and bobbing, haloed by the white light of her ‘saber.

Now, though—surrounded by bodies, their limbs slashed and split open—the pain hits. Or perhaps it creeps, as is appropriate for this hellscape of a moon. In any case, it’s a kind of paralysis, her body growing strangely dim. Her hands flutter, searching for wounds, and—there, her stomach. She presses her palm to it, and the skin comes away slick.

She reaches for the Force. And the light’s there, rimmed with red, but her fingers pass through it. She grips a tendril, a stray string, but even that unravels, leaving her weak and shaky. No energy. Just darkness, the kind that suits these alleyways, the backstairs of the Smuggler’s Moon.

The clinic’s a good twenty-minute walk away. Ten, if she takes a taxi, but there are no taxis in this sector of the Red Light. (Or, there _are_ , but they lie ransacked on the side of the road. Tires burn. The air smells of hot fuel, and just a touch of smoke.) So she does the only thing she can.

She walks.

By the time she reaches the clinic, her steps are uncertain. And it’s ironic, really—how many patients have walked through the door like this, breaths labored, skin shining with sweat? How many blaster wounds has she healed, legs tucked beneath her, gold glittering at the center of her palm? She wants to laugh. If her body did not hurt so much—if every step wasn’t a death in itself, rending her from head to toe—she probably would. But the sound doesn’t come. Only a wheeze. A half-gasped prayer to a deity she doesn’t believe in, and probably never will.

Teeseven meets her at the door. Beeps questioningly. _Jedi = has looked better // T7 = call for help?_

She nods, but it’s a jerky thing. A spasm. “Go through the back channels, Tee. I don’t want to broadcast our location.”

Which is, again, ironic. A few years ago, she would’ve done anything for some free advertisement. But things are different, now. She may have been a galactic figure back then, but a bounty on your head—or, in her case, more than one—tends to change things.

Teeseven beeps, swivels, rolls away. And she follows, tottering, a hand pressed to her stomach. If she were a normal person, she’d be feeling lightheaded, nauseous. And she does. But she also feels a steady drip of fluid, leaking through her fingers, dripping down her leg. She feels the cavity of her stomach swell, engorged, growing fuller, fuller. And she feels a curious kind of sickness. A taint. An infection, budding.

It hurts to breathe. But she breathes anyway, sucking air through her lungs, exhaling harshly through her mouth. Her nostrils flare. Her eyes sting, and she blinks, wiping beads of sweat from her brow.

She doesn’t remember the last time she felt such pain. The Emperor’s fortress, maybe, and even that’s a distant memory—she only gets flashes, now and then, a night spent writhing beneath Theron’s sheets—

Theron. He knew she was stopping by the clinic. Assuming he picked up on Teeseven’s broadcast—and she has no reason to think otherwise—he has to be getting close.

“Tee,” she calls, and it’s faint, buckling. Weak.

The astromech whistles. _T7 = here for Jedi // T7 = help?_

She shakes her head. Or she thinks she does. Her lashes flutter, sticky, eyelids sliding closed. “Have you heard from Theron?”

_Theron = radio silent // T7 = try again?_

“That’s okay, bud.” Her knees give way—but thankfully there’s a bed nearby, one of the cots she stole from a half-abandoned alley, with the flat mattress and the discolored stains. “You did great.”

There is silence for a long while. She reaches out, again, and the Force is there—warmth on her fingertips, tingling pleasantly. But when she tries to gather it, _focus_ it, the thing dissolves, a puddle of liquid at her feet.

She should try to stem the bleeding. Get the bullet out, so its casing doesn’t leak toxic chemicals into her bloodstream. But when she tries to lift a hand, push herself to her feet, nothing happens, and the pain that results is enough of a deterrent to keep her from trying again. So she lies there, crumpled at the foot of the cot, thinking how very nice it would be to perhaps be done with it all, if done means she can close her eyes and never again think of war.

The next thing she knows is pressure, and the sound of her name. _Callie, c’mon, don’t do this to me, you promised me it wouldn’t end like this…_

“Theron?” It comes out as a rasp. And she doesn’t want to open her eyes, but she does, letting the light peek through, all purple and blue.

“Callie.” His relief is palpable—on his face, but also in the way he speaks, the hush she saves for her.

“Hi.” She tries to smile. It’s a crooked attempt, but she sees it echoed in his own smile, there then gone. “I got into a fight.”

“I can see that.”

“There was this girl.” She’d forgotten. How could she forget the girl, the only thing that matters? “She got away? I think. Can you ask Teeseven if the girl got away? It’s—” and here there’s something sharp, a piercing in her stomach, and she lets out a tiny mewling— “important. It’s…”

“ _Stars_ ,” breathes Theron. And there’s something in his voice she’s never heard before. Horror, and maybe even fear. It sobers hers, though she’s still thinking of the girl, the look on her face, the way her ‘saber had ghosted neon wings against her retreating back.

“How bad is it?”

A pause. Then, brokenly, “Callie.”

And that’s all she needs to hear. The knowledge—deep inside, like it’s always been there—rushes up to meet her, yanks a gasp from her throat. “Oh.”

Another pause. She’s having a hard time looking at him—there’s too much there, too plainly written; she can’t hope to gather it all. But she still tries. And he tries, too, looking right back at her. “Callie,” he says, again.

She should be sad. She should be scared. But—and this is the strangest thing, because she can’t remember the last time she recited the Code—she thinks of Orgus, and her father. Everything that awaits her. _There is no death; there is only the Force._

“I love you.” The words come of their own accord. She lets them. “I love you, Theron. So much.”

His hand moves, presses so firmly against her cheek. And she turns her head, trying to nuzzle, trying to follow him one last time. “Don’t.”

Something inside her uncoils, takes a breath. She gets the sense she’s running out of time. “Promise me you’ll—” What? There’s so many things she wants for him. “Be happy, Theron. For me.”

His eyes are wet. “Please.”

“I’m sorry.” For what? Again, so many things. All this hurt in her body and she only wants to tend it for him, her successor—make it into some kind of garden. She hadn’t wanted to go like this. “Kiss me, Theron.”

His kiss is quiet. And it is the last thing she knows.


	10. Sharing Food

She’s not entirely sure what Vette was thinking.

The dresses are… nice. A bit dramatic for her taste, with all the lace, the puffed sleeves and full skirts, but at least the colors are nice. Soft, muted—apricot, beige, the faintest of lavenders. Even now, after years of Jedi robes and Alliance uniforms, she’s still drawn to pink. A luxury, really, but…

Then there are the outliers. Hats with stuffed monkey-lizards attached to the brim. Gowns that, all things considered, might actually pass for decent, if it weren’t for the giant trains of blood-splattered silk. ( _Look_ , Vette said, pushing the rack of outfits into Caldis’ quarters, lekku twitching excitedly. _I know it’s not… you. But my old master—this was hers, and it’s been gathering dust for years now, so I figure it’s time to let it catch some sunlight. Y’know? And besides, you may even end up liking it._ ) Leather bodysuits. Stupidity aside, her mother would _kill_ her if she showed up wearing something that revealing.

She sighs, passing a hand over the shimmery piles of fabric, practically choking the cockpit of the _Defender_. _Just pick something_ , Vette told her. _Go with your gut._ But what if her gut is telling her to skip the party altogether? What if her gut is telling her to curl up in a ball and take a nap, with T7 standing guard?

That’s actually not the worst idea. T7 wouldn’t object and, anyway, no one knows she’s here. By the time they figure out she left her quarters, dragging the cart of clothes behind her, she’ll have indulged in a couple hours of blissfully interrupted—

She doesn’t notice him till it’s too late. She thinks, dimly, that she’ll blame it on all the sequins.

“I knew I’d find you here,” says Theron, silhouetted in the entrance to the cockpit. Smirking, of course, because why wouldn’t he be. “I just didn’t expect the glitter in your hair.”

Her hand flutters up of its own accord, only to pause. She sticks her tongue out. “Funny.”

“I’m serious,” he says, lifting his chin. “There’s glitter in your hair.”

“Really?” She frowns, dragging her fingers through her hair. “When did you get back? Lana made it seem like you were gonna be gone for at least another day.” Pulling her hand free, she peers down at it—a pale thing, knuckles pink, skin drawn tightly over jutting wrist bones. And on the pads of her fingers, glittering, prone to catching the atmospheric light of the cockpit. “ _Force_.”

“Told you.” He shifts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Negotiations finished up early. The Hutts aren’t happy about the shift in power, but—”

“When are they ever happy,” finishes Caldis, dragging her palm down the front of her uniform. Which, now that she thinks about it, probably wasn’t the best idea. Now her uniform is all wink and flash.

“Exactly. Anyway, they’ll work with us, provided we’re willing to… look the other way on some things. I told them you’d think it over.” A pause. “I didn’t come here for a debrief, y’know,” he adds, voice light, teasing.

“Sorry,” she says absently, sending a gust of Force along the length of her. Still nothing. The damn glitter doesn’t even budge. “This glitter is killing me. Literally. I can _literally_ feel myself exiting my body.”

“Because that’s not dramatic at all,” he intones, lips curling at the corners.

She gives a noncommittal hum. “Vette must be rubbing off on me.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve always been this way.” Pushing himself off the wall, he moves to stand behind her, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head. “Brought you something.”

She exhales, arching into the touch, head tilting back to rest against his knee. “Missed you.”

Whenever he leaves, she usually has enough going on to keep herself preoccupied. But now, with Vaylin ousted, Vitiate defeated, Zakuul on the Alliance’s side, she feels like she’s out of her depth. Training Force users? Easy. Leading a squadron into battle? Moderately more difficult, but still something she can handle. Choosing an outfit for the gala her estranged mother is throwing in honor of her daughter’s achievements? Impossible.

It’s easier, though, when Theron’s around. Partly because he, too, has to suffer, and partly because he calms her, quiets the screaming mouths of her mind. A palm on her back and her breathing regulates. A kiss to her temple and the haze lifts. Her name and Vitiate is gone, her body _hers_ again—scarred, reckless, but something capable of holding her, of binding all the sharp fragments of her into some cohesive whole.

“Missed you,” she says again, firmer this time.

He laughs, dragging his fingertips down her forearm, over the crease of her elbow. “You’re supposed to ask what I got you.”

“You got me you,” she says. “You’re in one piece, I don’t see any cuts or bruises, and you’re laughing, which means everything’s okay. That’s all I need.” A pause. “Also, you are _way_ too far away right now. Like, what are you even doing? What’s the point of a floor if no one’s sitting on it?”

“ _You’re_ sitting on it.”

A pause. “What’s the point of a floor if only one person is sitting on it?”

He laughs again, easing himself between her and the console. It’s not easy, and there’s a moment of silence, broken by the faintest of curses, muttered under his breath. Eventually, however, he’s able to settle in, legs to either side of hers, their bodies pressed snugly together. An arm loops around her waist, his chin resting atop her shoulder. “Better?” he asks, pecking her cheek.

“Better,” she agrees, leaning against him. It occurs to her, briefly, that he’ll probably end up as glittery as her now, but he kind of deserves it after calling her dramatic. “Now, what’d you get me? I’m dying of suspense. And glitter. But, really, when you think about it, what a way to go, right? Better than a ‘saber through the gut. Which, for the record, is how Kira wants to go. A hero’s death, apparently, which I get, but also I’m just not that big on—”

“Callie.” The softest of kisses, brushed to the shell of her ear. “You’re rambling.”

“And you missed it.”

“I missed it,” he agrees, nosing the side of her neck. “But your noodles are getting cold, and I really don’t want to be the one to deliver cold—”

“Noodles?!” The word bursts from her, and she twists in his lap, legs tangled in a particularly troublesome two-piece halter… thing. Stars, who would even wear that? And in public, too? “Okay, but why wouldn’t you just lead with that?”

“In my defense,” says Theron, reaching behind him, “I was going to, but then I saw… all this.” He gestures to their surroundings with one hand, produces a container of noodles with the other. “I had some free time before departure and I thought that, well, since I was pretty much within walking distance of that cart you love so much—”

“It’s not a cart,” says Caldis, plucking the container from his hands. “It’s a legitimate restaurant. It’s not Dreelo’s fault that the only free space on the entirety of the Promenade was right next to the Slopes. Like, if it were up to me, they’d have a whole, like, corner, with tables and chairs and a speaker system, so Dreelo could play some of their music. They play the flute, y’know, and they’re actually really good, and I’ve _always said_ they’d be able to make a career out of it.” She sighs. Poor Dreelo. When was the last time she saw them, anyway? “Dreelo’s still alive, right? Who served you? Was it a Rodian? A one-eyed Rodian? Wait, no, they were getting cybernetics the last time we talked—”

“Dreelo’s fine,” Theron says, muffling a laugh against her shoulder. “Doing great. Cybernetics are in and looking fancy. They say hi. Now will you please just eat your damn noodles before they get any colder?”

She harrumphs, but opens the container, breathing deeply. Smells the same—that odd blend of spices she associates with Nar Shaddaa, the citrus tang of neon, and something all its own. Dreelo’s special something or other. Always bragging about it. “I can’t remember the last time I had Dreelo’s noodles. Before Arcann put me in carbonite, I guess.”

“Sounds about right.” Fingers curling against her waist, he presses a kiss to the crook of her neck. Not entirely surprising. He doesn’t like to be reminded of those years, the years she missed, the years he spent searching for her. And can she blame him, when it’s only recently that the nightmares left her. Only recently that she’s forgotten the cold press of carbonite against her skin. “After Ziost? It always seemed like you were on Narsh back then.”

She hums an affirmative, ripping the pack of utensils open with her teeth. “Didn’t wanna think about it,” she mumbles around the wrapping. “And the clinic let me do that. Patient X was going through withdrawal pangs, Patient Y had a fever, Trova didn’t have time to go grocery shopping and, hey, wasn’t there a _restaurant_ near the Slopes that served noodles?” A pause. “Dreelo was a good friend. Always gave me a discount. I should write them a letter.”

“I have no idea what you just said.” Theron takes the utensils from her, freeing them of their packaging with an ease that speaks to expertise. Wordlessly, he hands them back, throwing the wrapper across the cockpit.

“I said yes,” Caldis says. “Essentially.” Turning in his grasp, she presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Then up, up, to the corner of his mouth. She lingers, lips parting, breath hitching imperceptibly. “Thank you for the noodles.”

He exhales, flushing. A hand trails up the side of her neck, curling around her jaw, fingers tangling in the hair at her nape. “Never thought I’d want to kiss someone who used to eat regularly at a dingy noodle—”

“ _Restaurant._ ”

“Restaurant,” he allows, voice faint. “But I’ll go with it.”

He tugs lightly on her lower lip, just once, before kissing her fully, the hand at her waist curling fitfully in the—now glittery—fabric of her uniform. The kiss is brief, but she still finds herself panting lightly upon pulling away, resting her forehead against his jaw. He, too, is breathing heavily, and she chalks it up to distance, all the parsecs between them. All the stars, and empty space, and silence.

“Eat your noodles,” he breathes, finally, nosing her temple.

She sighs, only it comes out a whine. “Kissing after?”

“Obviously.” A kiss to the tender skin behind her ear, accompanied by a huff of laughter. “But only if you brush your teeth first.”

That’s fair. But not exactly what she was going for. “Maybe we could just share the noodles,” she suggests. “There’s no way I’m gonna eat all this by myself. At one point I probably could’ve, but I have to stay in shape, y’know, for all the… throne-sitting. So really you’d be doing the Alliance a favor.”

He snorts. But, Caldis notes, he’s smiling, which has to mean _something_. “Honestly, babe, I think you’re getting a bit too good at this rationalization thing.”

“You know you wanna try it,” she says, half sing-song.

“I really don’t think I do.”

“Spoilsport.” Winding the noodles around the tines of the fork, she turns, offering it to him. “C’mon. For me?” A pause. “Honestly, Theron, have I ever let you down? Ever led you astray?” Another pause. “We both know the answer to that, right? So why doubt me now, when _the best noodles you’ve ever tasted_ are within your grasp?” A final pause, tongue peeking between her lips. “Love yourself. Give in to Dreelo.”

Silence. Theron glances at her, then the fork, then her again, sighing. “Maybe you should be the one in charge of Alliance propaganda,” he says, before leaning forward, swallowing the forkful.

His face is impassive. Which makes sense, really, considering the whole SIS thing, but— _stars_ , would it kill him to emote once in a while? She reaches up, plucking the fork from his grasp. “Well?” She pokes his shoulder, lightly, with the fork. “Your life just changed, right? You’ll never disparage Narsh again? You’ll sign my letter to Dreelo? Maybe even include, like, a heart and a smiley face? ‘Thanks for everything you do, your noodles changed my life and I’d sell my own soul to get my hands on your recipe’?”

He swallows again. Hard. And, as much as she hates to admit it, her gaze is drawn to his mouth, to the slight parting of his lips. “Better than I expected,” he says eventually, brow furrowed. “But not the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Well.” She doesn’t really know what to say to that. “Your loss, I guess.” And hers. She wonders, briefly, if she should just disown him at this point. It certainly seems called for. “Your loss and my gain. I probably _shouldn’t_ eat the whole thing, but as a servant of the people I kind of have to, right? I can’t just let it go to waste. I won’t need to eat anything for the next several days, but—” she shrugs a shoulder— “whatever. Worth it.” Humming, she shoves a heaping forkful in her mouth.

Theron stares at her, unblinking. And then he laughs—a sudden, startled thing, shaking with the force of it. “I love you,” he says, dragging the words along the curve of her cheek.

Something stirs in her. Warmth, or maybe just adoration. In any case, her cheeks flood with it, and she hums. “I love you,” she says, nuzzling the underside of his jaw. “I mean, I’m probably biased—you _did_ bring me noodles—but you seem like a pretty cool guy. Someone worth loving. Someone…” A pause. She grins. “Who might be willing to help his girlfriend pick out a dress for her mother’s ball?”

He quirks a brow, dragging his fingers through her hair, blunt nails scratching her scalp. “Ball?”

“Party. Celebration?”

“Formal gathering.”

“Sure,” says Caldis, nodding. “We’ll go with that. Now stop—” poking his shoulder with the fork again— “evading the question.”

A moment’s pause. Then, “Depends on whether you’re seriously considering that bodysuit. Because, if we are, we need to have a talk.”


	11. Final Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Person A and Person B are alone on a star ship and watch some cheesy horror-holo—suddenly they hear a strange noise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...well. I'm sorry for this.
> 
> cw character death, violence, mental illness. spoilers for _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_?

“I don’t get it.”

She sighs. “What don’t you get?”

“Why does it matter if she’s a virgin?”

She sighs again. Really, she should’ve never brought it up.

 _Kira_ was the one obsessed with final girls. _Kira_ was the one who installed a holoprojector in one of the _Defender_ ’s empty bays, and _Kira_ was the one who forced her—and everyone else, including Scourge, who quickly developed a habit of grumbling under his breath—to watch slasher holo after slasher holo. And not even the good ones, either. B-grade, cheesy, and the subtitles, while in Aurebesh, were usually a couple words off the entire thing.

 _Trust me_ , Kira told her. _When I first left the Empire, I could barely sleep. I had nightmares all the time, and one night I was so far gone I actually downloaded a crappy bootleg of_ Korriban Lightsaber Massacre III _—_

_Didn’t the Emperor declare that anti-Sith propaganda or something?_

_Yep_ , she said, popping her _p_. _It was awful. The worst holo I’ve ever seen. But that night I slept like a baby, so I started bootlegging every slasher holo I’d ever heard of, marathoned ‘em over the span of two weeks. Completely cured me. Which is why I’m forcing you to start with_ Korriban Lightsaber Massacre _. It’s less gruesome than the other two, and Sella Hardesty is actually a really great protagonist. She outlives everyone—_

 _Kira!_ Accompanied by the lightest of swats to the Jedi’s shoulder. _Spoilers!_

_Oh. Well, it’s probably better this way. You’ll be less freaked out._

Now, years later, with Vitiate the patchwork of her nightmares—eyes gleaming yellow, yet taken by shadow, dark wisps at the edge of her vision—she finds herself here again, in that same empty bay, curled against Theron’s side. It took some convincing. It’s not like either of them really have that much free time. But, in the end, his concern won out.

That, or he’s getting tired of waking up in the middle of the night to an elbow in his face.

At least he’s good at calming her down. An arm about her waist; a kiss to her forehead, her temple, the bare skin of her shoulder. Some nights are worse than others. She wakes to his body, curled over his, a hand tangled in her hair. _Easy, baby. Easy—_

“And wouldn’t it be more satisfying if she actually killed the guy?” Theron continues. “I know I’m probably expecting too much from the plot, but I just—” He huffs out a breath, head falling back against the sofa. “We’re just supposed to accept the fact that he’s waiting in those ruins for his next victim?”

In his defense, she’s never really liked _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre_. It was one of Kira’s favorites, so she figured it was a place to start, but the ending’s always bothered her. If it were up to her, Sella would’ve chopped the creep’s head off. Violent, maybe, but it _is_ a slasher holo, and a B-grade one at that.

(She asked Kira, once, what B-grade actually meant. _Lower than A-grade?_

 _B-grades are the ones that tried_ , Kira said wisely, staring off into the distance. _They failed. Miserably. But they gave it their all. And for that we honor their legacy._ )

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says, hiding her face against him. She’s starting to get tired. “It’s awful. Kira called it B-grade.”

Theron hums, dragging his fingers through her hair. “Not all holos can be A-grade, I guess.”

It’s the way he says it, with a kind of unironic stoicism, that makes her think—not for the first time, even—that Kira and Theron probably would’ve ended up friends. Begrudging friends, maybe, but friends all the same. For a brief moment, she lets herself imagine it: the three of them, sprawled out on the couch, faces lit by the diluted colors of _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre II_. Someone dies. Kira laughs, throwing her head back. T7 sits at their feet, beeping his disapproval.

She blinks, the gaping maw of Kira’s laugh replaced by the emergency lights of an empty starship bay. Theron drops a kiss to her temple. The credits roll in the background.

“You never did explain the whole virginity thing,” Theron says, tucking his nose against the crook of her neck. “I’m dying of suspense here. Though maybe that’s just leftover adrenaline from watching a Sith hack people’s heads off for the past hour and a half.”

She snorts, but it comes out muffled, unconvincing. Every time she thinks of Kira, the want leaves a hole in her. And as time passes, weeks to months to years, the hole grows, stretching, a pit she cannot fill. The pain is softer these days, but the grief remains. She doubts she’ll ever shake it. Maybe if they find Kira’s body, but even then—

“The theory,” she says, if only to distract herself, “is that people watching these holos end up identifying with the character who survives, regardless of gender. Like—” She shifts, tucking her legs beneath her. “We’d expect that, because you identify as male, you’d more easily identify with a male character. But there are no major male characters in these kinds of holos, other than the killer, and who wants to identify with the killer, right? So you’re forced to identify with Sella, the survivor, the ‘final girl’. And there’s this whole thing about final girls being morally pure,” she adds, belatedly remembering his question. “We see them rejecting sex or drugs or, y’know, whatever, which is supposed to convince us that they deserve to live, as opposed to everyone else, who presumably aren’t as pure.”

A moment’s pause. Then, slowly: “Wow.”

“Yeah,” says Caldis, bobbing her head. “Men don’t usually like identifying with female characters, so the final girl trope has become a subversion, I guess? Of patriarchy?”

“I can see that.” His palm smooths down her back, tripping skillfully over the notches of her spine. “I’m mostly just surprised that you… know all that.” He pulls back, then, just enough to look at her, brows quirking upward. “Have you secretly been a holo critic this whole time?”

She makes a sound of disgust. “You know me better than that.”

“Well, sure. But we _did_ just watch a classic, though arguably B-grade, slasher holo, at your request. You can’t blame me for feeling a little mixed up.”

“I told you this was Kira’s theory,” she reminds him. “Right?”

He nods.

“That watching slasher holos at two in the morning would help me with my nightmares?”

He nods again.

Caldis swallows, eyes flicking from his face to the credits to his face again. Nothing she says could possibly surprise him, at this point, but she still feels… nervous. Uncertain, almost, of her surroundings, the solidity of the grated floor. Huffing out a breath, she pulls herself upright, hands settling pale and listless atop her thighs.

“Vitiate had me imprisoned for over a year, and the months after I got out were—” _Bad._ “The few memories I retained of that year manifested through nightmares. So Kira started collecting all these slasher holos, eventually convinced me to watch them with her, and it… actually helped. I still had nightmares, but they were easier to deal with. Easier to wake from.” A pause. She sucks in a breath, then exhales, all that air hissing straight out of her. “I couldn’t always handle the gore, which is ironic, I know. So sometimes instead of watching the whole thing we would just let it play on mute. She would tell me the highlights, which always seemed to devolve into her dissecting instances of the final girl trope.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “Apparently I was listening to her rants without even knowing it?”

She recognizes the look on his face, one of uncertainty—arguing with himself over what to say, how to say it, when. Then he breathes a chuckle, leaning across the sofa to kiss her forehead. “So you essentially _are_ a holo critic. Just not—”

“By choice.”

“By choice,” he echoes, nodding. His lips twitch against her skin, and she nearly envisions the smile on his face, practically a smirk. “She sure put you through a lot, didn’t she?”

Caldis hums. Again that emptiness, a daily occurrence, no more foreign than the bruisings of her body. “And to think she was my _padawan_ —”

A clattering sound. Far-off, distant. Theron stiffens beside her and, before she can stop herself, she reaches out, calling her lightsaber to the palm of her hand. She nearly flicks it on, but pauses at the silent shake of Theron’s head, the press of his forefinger to his lips.

“You closed the loading ramp, yeah?” he breathes.

She nods.

Theron eases himself to his feet, reaching for the blaster on his hip. The _Defender_ is quiet, yet every sound is magnified—the settling of the hull, metal scraping metal. Nothing out of the ordinary. And it’s not like Odessen’s docking bays are immune to the planet’s wildlife. Critters have been known to make their way inside, nesting in the cockpits of starships, the slender bodies of Alliance fighters.

“I’m checking out the cockpit,” Theron mouths, moving soundlessly towards the door. “Stay here.”

“Theron,” she rasps, barely audible, trusting his cybernetics to pick up the sound. But he’s already gone, and she’s left sitting on the ratty old couch she and Kira stole from a junkyard on Nar Shaddaa, legs tucked against her chest.

The credits have finished, Caldis notes, thumbing the trigger of her lightsaber. In their place, a black screen—one that blooms with sudden, vibrant color. She blinks the afterimage away, rubbing at her eyes with a white-knuckled fist. Some of the holos play on repeat, she knows, though she doesn’t remember _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre_ as being one.

The colors coalesce and, there, grinning madly—

_Kira?_

“Hey, Master,” she says easily, voice light. “Don’t worry, you’re not dreaming. Pinch yourself if you want, just to make sure, but I promise, this is real.”

It takes her a moment, maybe two, to put it together. Kira must’ve recorded this, slapped it on to the end of _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre_. She looks older, older than Caldis remembers her being. Scars she doesn’t remember, the faintest wrinkle near the corner of her mouth. An alternate Kira, yet strangely familiar, like returning to something she once loved.

“If I’m right, Lana’s plan worked. Which is great! You’re out of carbonite! You’re not dead! All good things.” A pause. The smile wavers, skin drawing tight around her eyes. “But if you’re watching this, that means the nightmares are back.

“Hopefully I’m there to explain this to you. But if I’m not, then this’ll have to do.” Kira looks down, presumably at her hands, huffing out a breath. “Force knows how long you’ll be in carbonite. I might be dead by the time you get out. I don’t have my eye on a suicide mission or anything, so don’t lose your head, but—” She shrugs. Laughs, the sound hollow. “The Force works in mysterious ways. And I know that, coming out of carbonite, you’re probably freaking out. If I can’t be there for you, like you were for me all those years ago, I figured I could at least leave you a little something. Only problem is that I have no idea what to say.”

A long pause. Caldis can scarcely breathe.

“You won’t be alone. I know that much, at least. Teeseven’s pretty much sworn to do whatever it takes to get you out of Arcann’s clutches, and Lana’s good. I don’t know what the hell Theron is up to, but maybe the Force will be kind for once and let you watch this with his arm around you or… something. You deserve that much. But—” Kira sighs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I carry you with me, Master. You’ve been gone for years, and I’m starting to forget what you looked like, but the things you taught me? The time we spent together? It lives on, in me, and hopefully in you. So if I’m dead, let yourself cry. But not for too long, okay? The Galaxy _needs_ you. And I’ll never be far away. You know that.”

There is silence for a long moment. Kira’s eyes glitter in the low light of the bay—crystalline, lifelike. She opens her mouth, shuts it, opens it again. And then just laughs. “Nope. Sorry, Master, I’m not going to cry on camera. If this is the last time you see this beautiful face—” she gestures at herself with wide, sweeping movements— “then let it be unmarred by tears.

“By the way, if you end up watching _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre II_ , be sure to look up when the explicit sex scene is, because I know that stuff makes you uncomfortable, and also that’d make for a really awkward date with Shan.” Kira smiles, winks. “See you when I see you, Master.”

Kira reaches toward the screen. There’s another clattering sound, followed by a muffled curse, followed by a black screen.

Theron returns minutes later to a sobbing Caldis, _Korriban Lightsaber Massacre_ playing innocently in the background.


	12. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Hope softens the rough edge of every promise."

“You seem distracted.”

They’re both panting, at this point. Her calves are aching, palms scraped raw. A downside, she supposes, to training staffs, but isn’t the pain preferable to—

She can’t help but feel like, after this long, she should be used to Lana’s lightsaber. And, in a way, she is. In the heat of battle, she trusts Lana to have her back. Will even search for the red blur of the Sith’s blade in times of crisis. But on Odessen, surrounded by lifeless dummies, reflections distorted in the smudged mirrors that line the walls—

Lana was right. She _is_ distracted.

“Sorry,” she huffs, mopping her brow with a forearm. The skin comes back slick, shiny, and she winces, slipping subconsciously into Shii-Cho. “Guess I am.”

Lana hums. Dives forward, footwork a peculiar combination of Soresu and—Makashi, she thinks, though she can’t be sure. Caldis raises her staff above her head, and the blow glances off, drawing a muttered curse from Lana. “And yet your defense is impenetrable.”

Not strictly true. If it were, she would never have let Theron in to begin with. The first time they met, with Colonel Darok looking on, she wouldn’t have asked about Satele. And later, in the fleet cantina, Kira lounging at a far-off table… And later still, on Rishi, that first almost-kiss. _Do you want me to kiss you_ , he’d asked, and the only answer in her whole damn body was _yes, please_ —

“Sorry,” she huffs again, taking a step back. Why she’s apologizing, or what for, she’s not exactly sure. It feels vaguely like everything. “I get this way when I’m distracted. It’s like my brain just… switches off, and my body’s free to do whatever it takes to keep itself alive.”

“Survival instinct.”

“I guess you could call it that.” She’s not sure she would. Survival intimates life, doesn’t it, yet it doesn’t feel like there’s any life in her. Only deadness, stretching for miles in every direction, reminding her of Alderaan—smoke curling above razed fields, blackened valleys. “In any case, it’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”

Their breaths echo, bounce, loud and harsh. Lana gauges the space between them, and Caldis shifts, Shii-Cho to Shien, anticipating the switch to Juyo.

“Do you know,” Lana says, voice light, conversational, “I’ve always thought you’d excel as a Sith. You were not built for cruelty, but there _is_ a certain… animalness to you. A refusal to surrender.”

Then, just as she anticipated, a flash of Juyo. The blow glances off once more, and Caldis presses forward, aiming low, right for Lana’s kneecaps. The strike flies wide, just as she intended.

Strange that, after all these years, she still struggles with this. Has to force herself to follow through, inflict pain, bruise. It’s the only way to learn, she knows, and technically Lana was the one who suggested this. Training, together. _We could both stand to let off some steam_ , she’d said in that impassive way of hers. Never mentioning the source of the steam, which is to say Umbara, which is to say—

Twirling, she hooks the backs of Lana’s legs, tugging them out from beneath her. Lana topples, hitting the floor with a muffled sound.

“Well played,” huffs Lana after a moment. A blonde hair quivers frenziedly, the only evidence of disarray.

Caldis reaches down, offering a hand. A hand on her wrist, fingers curled against the lacework of her veins, and she tugs. Soon, Lana’s on her feet again, stretching the ache from her limbs.

“It was a compliment,” she continues, seemingly out of nowhere. “Perhaps you do not see it as such. But the Sith can be honorable, and I know no one as honorable as you.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. In another life, maybe. In another life, she became a Sith, scrapped her way to the top of the ladder. In another life, she turned the grief into something useful, something capable of fueling her. Sometimes she’s able to conjure a vision: her face warped by the red light of her blade, eaten away by shadow. But the vision always fades, replaced by the only thing she knows: a body made of scars, faded bruises, a cybernetic spinal column. An animal, yes, but incapable of cruelty.

In the end, all she does is laugh. The only way she knows of taking a compliment. Theron always said he’d teach her how to have an ego. But, she reasons, that was… before. And this—

“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?”

This is after.

“What,” she says, voice sore, croaking. She tries again. “What?”

“Theron,” says Lana, slipping effortlessly into Shien. Subconscious. In expectation of attack. “Your brow furrows when you talk about him.”

“I wasn’t talking,” she begins to say, only to cut herself off. Her brow _is_ furrowed. She swallows, hard, looking down at her feet. Bare, toes curling reflexively against the mat. “I’m that transparent, huh?”

“You forget I’m a spy.” There’s a kindness to Lana’s voice. She doesn’t know what to do with it. “What were you thinking about?”

A better question would be what _isn’t_ she thinking about. Her waking hours are spent in a haze. Everything reminds her of him—the tenor of someone’s laugh; her name in someone’s mouth, familiar enough to be him, to make her think he’s finally home. A red sleeve. The neon blip of a cybernetic implant. Even blaster fire, somehow drawing a tenderness from her.

“I’m awful at taking compliments,” she says finally. Her staff sits in her hand, useless, barely a limb. “He said he’d teach me how. But—” She shrugs a shoulder. “He said a lot of things.”

Lana laughs. An attempt at commiseration. “That he did. And yet—” A pause. When she next speaks, it’s with a calculated, almost painful hesitancy. “There’s still hope, Commander.”

“Is there?” That’s what everyone’s been telling her. _Don’t give up, Commander. It hasn’t been that long. It may have just taken him a while to get your message…_ And it’s there they trail off, blinking dolefully, rosy with embarrassment.

“As Sith,” Lana says eventually, “we are taught to use our anger. To nurture it. Even now, I find myself tempted to despise Theron for what he did.” She looks down at her hands, chafed from handling the staff, but steady. “That’s not to say I would not take my revenge, were I given the chance. But there is a part of me that hopes. For what, I cannot say. Clarity, perhaps. But it is hope all the same. Something I would not have allowed prior to meeting you.”

A moment of silence.

Lana sighs, setting her staff on the ground. Caldis recognizes the look on her face. Consideration. Weighing the benefits of Juyo against those of Shien. Suddenly, she can’t help but feel the animalness in her. The fear of getting cornered. The urge to run. She takes a step back, just as Lana takes a step forward.

Another moment of silence, this one festering, ache-filled.

“I will hope for you,” Lana says finally, “just as you have hoped for me in the past.” She hesitates. Again, a look of consideration. Shien to Shii-Cho. Neutral stance, neither offensive or defensive. Orgus called it a state of being. “And if it turns out that we were foolish to hope, then I will teach you pride. It is what Sith are best at,” she adds, smiling faintly. “You would be hard-pressed to find humility in the Sith Code.”

“You would be hard-pressed to find pride in the Jedi Code,” Caldis says, hardly even thinking now. She doesn’t know what else to say. There are so few words these days.

“Then we meet in the middle,” says Lana, resting a hand on Caldis’ shoulder. “And we go from there.”


	13. Drought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Hello? Hello? Hey, why isn't my holocom working?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spec, I guess, bc we don't ~technically~ know that Theron is undercover? in any case, Callie's had time to come to terms with everything—to the best of her ability, anyway, bc I'm sure she'll still struggle with everything the Stupid Spy Boy said—and is in a better headspace.
> 
> this isn't my best writing, but I'm hesitant to edit lest I disrupt the magic and destroy the whole thing.

The alley is empty.

Not that she expected differently. The thing _screamed_ setup. While it’s a personal fantasy of hers—one of her patients reaching out after all these years—it’s certainly one of the more unlikely ones. And to request that she come alone? She feels vaguely like she’s participating in some sort of illicit drug deal.

Lana was suspicious from the beginning. _If this is, in fact, a setup—_

_I know._

_Or if something were to happen to you—_

_I_ know _, Lana._

Lana’s arguments were foolproof. They made complete, logical sense, and Caldis had exactly zero rebuttals—other than, of course, that she was curious. That, if it _was_ actually one of her patients, wouldn’t it be awful of her to just leave them standing under the spotty lavender filter of Nar Shaddaa’s sky, surrounded by spice dealers and Force knows what other kinds of vices. Not to mention the fact that, all things considered, it’s been a while since she dropped by the clinic (not strictly true, but Lana didn’t need to know that)…

 _Your mind is made up_ , observed Lana, _isn’t it_.

A moment’s pause. Then, with an abashed shrug of her shoulders, _Sorry._

Lana insisted on coming with. Which led, naturally, to T7 hitching a ride. She can almost imagine it: the two of them huddled beneath the leaky roof of the clinic, forms lit by the flickering neon of the holoprojector.

One of Lana’s ideas. _If it really is just a patient, then they won’t have any idea we’re monitoring the exchange—_

 _Exchange_ , Caldis echoed, groaning. _It really is a drug deal, isn’t it? Stars, Rhyss is never gonna let me live this down. ‘How many times have I told you to never meet a stranger alone on Narsh, Callie? Gods. You don’t listen, do you? You never have.’_

Lana blinked impassively. _And if this ends up being anything more than a… sentimental reunion_ , she continued, _at least we’ll be prepared._

Caldis glances at her watch, glowing brightly in the faint gloom of the alley. It doesn’t rain on Nar Shaddaa—something about pollution, the density of the clouds—yet she finds herself aching for it, for just a spot of wetness. Something to soothe the heat of her, crackling and dry. The air is heavy today, thick with smog, carrying the scent of decay and rot.

It’s been over an hour. Time to call it.

“I think she’s a no-show,” she says, pushing herself off the wall. “Too good to be true, I guess. Anyway, I’m heading back.”

She waits for confirmation, but nothing comes. Frowning, she fingers the bud in her ear, tapping it once. “Lana?” Silence. A moment’s pause, and then she’s tugging the thing out. “Tee?” The status light, hidden beneath a panel, blinks green. The connection is strong. “You guys there?”

She thinks, dimly, of setups. But why make her wait for an hour, when someone could’ve jumped her the minute she left the clinic? Still, she stiffens, a hand moving to her lightsaber. After a moment’s consideration, she unclips it, palming the hilt.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she says, feeling vaguely like she’s losing her mind, talking to herself in an abandoned alley like this, “but I can’t hear you, which means that—well, it could mean a number of things, all of which are arguably bad.” Not necessarily, she tells herself. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. “So I’m gonna head back. If I don’t show up, I’m probably dead, or bleeding out in a warehouse somewhere, or getting tortured…”

Or all three. Just not at the same time.

“Anyway,” she continues, wetting her lips, “don’t let my mom plan my funeral. Please. It’s my last request, so you’re morally obligated to follow it.”

It occurs to her that she’s probably overreacting. Nar Shaddaa is a cruel, dangerous creature, but nothing she hasn’t faced before. Even now, years later, the lights pervade her dreams—crimson, violet, dripping across the skyline. The distant sound of cantina music. The rough laugh of a Gamorrean, a child’s hungry wail. Evils she’s familiar with, the animalness of this moon, having somehow possessed her, too.

A quick walk through the Red Light. A taxi, while safer, is slow, and ultimately leaves her out in the open. When she’s on her feet, she can slip through back entrances, climb a fire exit or two. Routes she knows like the back of her hand.

Easing the bud back into place, she adjusts her grip on the hilt of her lightsaber, fingering the trigger. Somewhere in the Red Light, a siren blares.

“Callie.”

She stops. Swallows. A voice she hears in dreams, only now it’s sharper. Impossibly real, and imperfect, and _Theron_. Immediately she recognizes the lump in his throat, that rasp of uncertainty, breathlessness, hesitation—

A flash of red. His jacket. She blinks, and he coalesces at the edge of her vision, a blur of gray and cybernetics.

“Callie,” he says again. It sounds too much like a plea. Like he’s begging her to see him.

Suddenly she doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want it to happen like this, surrounded by filth, someone’s empty spice container, faded graffiti.

“Shouldn’t you be killing people for the Heralds,” she gets out, tightening her grip on the hilt of her lightsaber. It’s a low blow, even for her. But he won’t miss the shake to her, how she can’t stay still, how every atom in her body aches to be near him again.

She closes her eyes. Sees him there, in the center of her mind, bright enough to blind her. The countless energies of Nar Shaddaa, yet all she knows is him—the rapid thrumming of his heartbeat, quiet ticking of his jaw. The want of his hands, aching to touch her, body aching to be touched.

“Callie,” he breathes, raw enough to split her. He’s closer now. Reaching out, closing the distance, hands passing through heavy air.

“Is that all you can say?” Her voice is quiet. His fingers look like spokes of light in the Force, arching towards her. She imagines the boom of a thunderclap. The ground shaking beneath them. Clouds full of rain. “My name?”

“What do you want me to say?” And there’s the Theron she knows. Scrappy. Fitting, she thinks, for the Smuggler’s Moon. “That I’m sorry? That it was a shitty thing to do? That someone had to do it anyway?” His voice breaks. In the distance, a crack of lightning. Or was it just a siren? “That I’ve _missed_ you?”

She can feel it. A slight uptick in his breathing, and beneath that, ache and want—impossible things, yet possibly real. Suddenly he is all she wants. This isn’t how she imagined it, with the grime, the siren, the absence of rain. But can she ask for more, she wonders, when this drought is all they’ve known for months, this drought so close to breaking.

“Callie,” begs Theron.

She turns.


	14. Gizkas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is ridiculously fluffy, and admittedly a little choppy, but I had the time of my life writing it, so who cares.

She’s learned, over time, to expect the unexpected. To assume that, one way or another, the Galaxy, the Force, whatever being has twisted the threads of her life into a billion red knots, would eventually screw her over. But _this_ —

“So you ordered a crate full of gizkas off the Holo?”

“No,” says Theron, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He must’ve put an exorbitant amount of gel in it this morning, because it stays like that, in spiky points, sharper than they usually are. “I ordered _a_ gizka. As in, _one_. As in, not—” he gestures to the hangar with a wide, sweeping arc of his arm— “ _this_.”

It would be funny, Caldis thinks, if half the Alliance hadn’t submitted complaints. One gizka is, according to some, bad enough, but several crates full? She’d been somewhat skeptical, scrolling through the complaints in Lana’s office, reading about the _blasted vermin_ , _noise is insufferable_ , _can’t move three feet without tripping over one_ , but now she can see it.

They’re _everywhere_.

“I don’t know what happened,” he’s saying. “I checked the order. Double-checked it, even, and—” Pushing himself off the wall, he steps closer, jabbing a finger at his datapad. “See? One gizka. _One._ Not twenty, not thirty, not eighty-seven—”

“You really think there’s that many?”

“Look around!” Another gesture, this one jerky, unbalanced. “You know how fast these things reproduce. By the time we manage to empty the hangar, we’ll be looking at—”

“Over a thousand.”

Theron looks at her.

“Lana ran the numbers.”

“Of course she did.”

It would be funny, Caldis thinks, if Theron wasn’t so worked up about it. A gizka hops over, pawing at his boot, and he glares down at it, brow creased. After a moment, and the smallest squeak of a sound, it scurries back across the room.

Theron sighs, dragging a palm down over his face. She hasn’t really gotten the chance to look at him lately, not with Iokath, the Empire, his _dad_. But now, with his attention elsewhere, and most of the available Alliance personnel researching gizka poison, she allows herself to take him in. The creases near his eyes, giving way to wrinkles. The odd strand of graying hair. Even his hands feel older now. Or maybe it’s just that, after years of this, of standing by his side, she’s grown used to the sight of it, his body shriveling beneath the weight of… everything.

“We’ll figure something out.” She says it without thinking. “It’s not the worst thing in the world. Right? Like, we could be facing down Valkorion again, or I could be back in carbonite, or…” It occurs to her that listing off all the terrible things that could be happening might actually have the opposite effect of what she intended. “I don’t know. Point is, we’ve been through worse.”

He gives a noncommittal hum, crossing his arms over his chest. Her eyes flick to his hands—fingers curled against his forearms, white-knuckling the fabric of his jacket—and she frowns. He’s usually so particular about the leather.

“Hey.” Hooking an arm through his elbow, she draws closer, propping her chin on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

He stiffens against her and, for a moment, she wonders if he’s going to pull away. But then he relaxes, leaning his head against hers. “It’s dumb.”

“Doubtful.” She hides her face against him, squeezing his arm. _Go on._

He huffs a breath. “I got it for you,” he says finally, voice quiet. “The gizka. I read somewhere that they’re actually pretty decent emotional support animals, and I thought that, with your nightmares, maybe it’d…” Another breath. He shakes his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t want him to take her smile, blooming peach-colored and blush-like, the wrong way, so she bites the inside of her cheek instead. “You bought me a pet?”

“Not a pet,” replies Theron, sounding only a little miffed. “An emotional support animal.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They’re an empirically-validated—”

“Uh-huh,” she hums, shuffling to stand in front of him. He stiffens briefly, only to loop his arms around her waist, tugging her against him. “I don’t know about you, but that sounds _awfully domestic_ , validated or no.”

“You’re lucky everyone’s busy chasing gizkas,” he says, dropping a kiss to her brow. His fingers splay against the small of her back, thumb skipping obsessively over the outline of her cybernetics, blurry through the fabric of her shirt. “Not everyone would approve of this level of PDA.”

Caldis scoffs, reaching up to tap his nose. “Stop changing the subject.”

“Stop accusing me of domesticity.”

“Stop giving me a reason to.” She quirks a brow. “I call it like I see it.”

“Maybe you’re just biased.”

Another scoff, this one theatrical, over-the-top. “The _Commander_ of the _Eternal Alliance_ , _biased_ towards her _boyfriend_? Un _think_ able.” A pause. “Besides, I kind of like being the only one who knows how soft you actually are.”

There is silence for a moment. That same gizka wanders over, headbutting her knees, the backs of her ankles. Then, with a quiet chuckle, he drops another kiss to her brow, this one lingering. “Only for you.”


	15. Obeisance

“See,” Caldis says, “you laugh, but I distinctly remember you calling me commander on _more_ than one occasion.”

“Really?” Theron lifts his head, blinking at her, brow furrowed in thought. “In bed?”

She nods.

“Were we just lying here? Or were we…” He trails off, nails dragging ever so lightly against the skin of her stomach.

“Kissing!” she yelps, squirming away from him, the word dissolving into sharp bursts of laughter. “We were kissing, nothing else, and _you_ —” she bats at his hand, body tangling with the sheets— “need to _stop_ , because I am _way_ too sensitive there for you to be—”

Theron shuffles closer, throwing an arm over her waist, tugging her against him. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he murmurs, nosing her neck. “I don't remember the last time I called you commander.”

“Yesterday?” His lashes tickle the skin at her nape, and she hums, shivers, teeth catching on her lower lip.

“That doesn't count.”

“How do you figure? You were there, and I was there, and you looked at me and said—”

“We were in a briefing!”

“It was literally just you, me, and Lana. That's not a briefing, that's a social call.”

He huffs. Noses her nape again, before letting his head rest there, in the crook of her neck, breaths coming soft, steady. His chest presses against her back with every exhale, their legs tangled, bodies slotted together.

It was naive of her to hope that, after everything that's happened, they could somehow go back to the way things were. That she could somehow forget what it was like to sleep alone, to cast a hand out in the middle of the night and find nothing but cool sheets, an untouched pillow. She had nightmares for weeks after he came back—would dream of his face, distorted red—only to wake and see him lying across from her. A beautiful, impossible thing, capable of cruelty. Capable of breaking her.

It was naive of her to think they could go back to the way things were. But it's almost better this way. Before Nathema—before things changed; before she knew what it would be like to live with the aching, empty space he left behind—she would sometimes be afraid to touch him. They would go days without seeing each other, and when they came back, home, crawling into bed at four in the morning, their bodies would vibrate, a blur of hesitancy. But now—

Now they seek each other out. She'll turn to find his collarbone with her mouth, his abdomen with the soft skin of her palm. His hands will find her waist, her hips, pulling her into him, sighing in relief when their bodies make contact.

 _We wasted so much time_ , she told him once. _Do you ever think about that? All the years we weren't together, with the Order, Arcann…_ The year he was gone. She didn't say it; she didn't have to.

_Then let's not waste any more._

“It's a respect thing,” he's saying now, squeezing her gently. “I call you commander because… I would follow you anywhere. To the ends of the galaxy. Beyond, even. And I know you know that, but isn't there something to be said for hearing it?”

She never thought of it that way. But who can blame her, when her life has been nothing more than a procession of titles. Jedi Knight. Hero of Tython. Battlemaster, Outlander—and now, blessedly, ex-Commander of the Eternal Alliance.

“Can't I just be your wife?” It comes out desperate. Sighing, she twists in his arms, trailing her fingers along the curve of his jaw. “I know you'd follow me anywhere. And I hope you know I'd do the same for you. But the point is we don't _have_ to anymore.”

If her voice breaks, it's only because she's thinking of the years she spent in carbonite, the years he spent looking for her. Even now, she can feel his loneliness, a break in the wave of the Force, rippling onward, outward.

“We can just be us,” she continues, gaze dropping to his mouth for a moment. “I know I said I didn't want to take your name but, you know, Caldis Elanne-Shan sounds pretty badass. I think I could get used to it.” Tongue peeking out from between her teeth, she traces the shell of his ear. “Or Theron Shan-Elanne. Sounds a little bit like poetry, don't—”

Theron nudges her shoulder, pushing her down onto the mattress, until he's straddling her.

“—you think?” she gasps, barking a laugh. Her arms find his neck, looping around it, fingers dragging through his hair. “I'm going to take that as a yes.”

“I thought I was your idiot spy boyfriend.” He hovers above her for a moment, eyes dark, before leaning down, tucking his face against her neck. His palms smooth down her sides, over her ribcage, before settling against her hips.

“Husband,” she corrects. “Idiot spy _husband_.”

“Well, of course.” Humming, he drops a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “So what should I call you then? Magical Jedi princess?”

She laughs again, the sound ripped from her, breathless when he pecks the corner of her mouth. She chases him when he pulls away, whining in complaint. “Or just your wife,” she gets out.

“My wife,” echoes Theron, dragging kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, the skin at her temple. “I think I could get used to that.”

For a moment, all she can do is stare up at him. She remembers, in the weeks after Umbara, how she dreamt of him—his face, split in two with the force of his laugh. She woke and expected him there, an arm slung over her waist, body curled around her own. But there was only ever absence. Absence, and ache, and the memory of him, fresh enough to hurt. She'd look down and see flowers, springing up about her feet, yellow and merry. Evidence of her love for him. How, after everything, it persisted, growing, blooming in the soil of her.

“My husband,” she says finally, reaching up to thumb the corner of his mouth. “I think I could get used to that, too.”


	16. Compass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is awful, terrible, no good angst, and I’m deeply sorry.
> 
> this is set about a month after Nathema. there are some references to the vigilante fic I’ve pretty much abandoned, but all you really need to know is that Callie became a vigilante while Theron was undercover. in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best coping mechanism she could’ve chosen.
> 
> love y'all, thanks for reading <3

“Teeseven said I'd find you here.”

Caldis startles, turning on a heel. She's barely able to make out Theron's silhouette, fuzzy at the edges, blurring into the neon of Nar Shaddaa.

She's not used to having him back. It's been a month—of waiting; of sitting at the foot of his kolto tank, watching the rise and fall of his chest; of avoiding him, now that he's back on his feet. Using every excuse she can think of to duck out of meetings early, to be anywhere but Odessen. But sometimes, always when she least expects it, he manages to find her, taking her off guard.

Some days, most days, she barely remembers he's home.

“What are you doing here,” she gets out. Her voice is distorted, garbled, by her mask, and she sighs.

The suit. She forgot about the suit.

She turns her back to him, counts the number of stims under her breath. She doesn't have time for this. There's another hostage situation in the Red Light—the sooner she can get prepped, the sooner she can save lives, the sooner she can forget that Theron's—

“What are you doing here,” she says again, asking this time.

“Teeseven said you needed help.”

“And he sent you?” That, she thinks, did not come out right. “You can barely stand.”

“I may have altered his programming,” says Theron after a moment. “Persuaded him to tell me where you’ve been sneaking off to in the middle of the night.”

Of course. She hasn't updated T7's security software in a while, not since Theron left. It makes sense that, out of everyone on base, the only person able to break through his firewall would be the one who programmed it in the first place.

“You shouldn't have done that.” She's trembling. Reaching out, she grabs the closest stim, running her thumb over the trigger.

“Well, you obviously weren't going to tell me.” Theron's beside her, now. She can feel his warmth, even through the leather of the suit; can sense his Force signature, pink and gauzy at the edge of her awareness. “You barely even talk to me, let alone look at me.”

Because looking at him is a commitment. Because acknowledging his presence means that, in one way or another, she has to come to terms with this—with all this space between them, how the bed feels cold again for the first time in months.

She got used to it, sleeping alone. T7 would settle at the foot of the bed, scanning the room for intruders every few hours. At first, the bed felt empty, the sheets pristine, untouched. But she learned, with time, to take up space. To stretch out. She bought a new mattress, a couple of weighted blankets, curling around a pillow in lieu of Theron's body.

On bad nights, when she would scream herself hoarse, Fideltin would knock, ask if she was modest. She always was; she always let him in.

“I don't owe you anything, Theron.” His name feels awkward in her mouth, with its sharp edges, its jagged corners. She fights to keep her voice even. To keep herself from snapping the stim in two.

“You owe me an explanation.”

He lifts a hand, as if to touch her, her elbow, whatever part of her is closest. She skitters away, breath coming loud and harsh.

“Callie.” It sounds familiar, her name in his mouth, too familiar for comfort. She lets herself sit in it—his presence, this moment—and nearly forgets to breathe.

“Look at me,” he says, and it sounds like he's begging.

“You should go.” She can't think when he's around, and she needs to. Needs to make sense of all this, how her thoughts scatter whenever he walks into the room. “You've comprised the mission. If someone followed you—”

“I was careful.”

“Yeah, well, apparently that doesn't mean much.”

The first time he kissed her, on Rishi, his palm cupping the back of her neck, she apologized. _I've never done that before, I'm sorry if I was awful, I probably just need more practice._ The fifth time, on Coruscant, she stepped on his foot, only to pepper him—his brow, the corner of his mouth, the creases near his eyes—with small, apologetic kisses.

The ninth time, on Odessen, she asked him to be gentle. _I feel… fragile_ , she said, blinking up at him. _I don't know. Is that stupid? It's probably stupid. Maybe I have carbonite sickness._

He touched her elbow, guiding her against him. _It's not stupid._ The words were nearly lost in her hair, folded in a kiss to her cheek. _I'll be careful._

She can feel his gaze on her, dark and unwavering, somehow a question. Meanwhile, the planet rages on—club music, neon, the faint scent of spice. She blows out a breath, fogging the visor of her mask.

“What happened to you?” he asks plainly. “Callie. What—”

“ _You_ happened.”

She didn't mean to snap. But it's too late to take it back and, anyway, she's not sure she wants to. Why would she, when all she's done the past few weeks is bite her tongue. Near strangers come up to her, tell her how glad they are Theron's back, and all she can do is smile, nod, murmur her thanks.

The only one who understands is Lana. Just last week, the Sith came to her office, red-cheeked and blustery. _Theron_ , she said, _is back on his feet._

All Caldis said was _oh_.

 _Up for a match?_ asked Lana later, having spent the past half-hour listing all the concerns she had with Theron being mobile. It wasn't that she didn't believe him, she said, or that any part of his story was suspect—she just couldn't trust him yet, didn't remember how to.

All Caldis said was _yes_.

“You,” she continues, setting the stim down, “left. I know it was for a good reason, and I know you didn't want to, but that doesn't change the fact that—” She fell asleep crying most nights. That, for months afterward, she didn't know how to function, barely dragging herself out of bed. “You weren't here. The Alliance fell apart and you weren't here. The galaxy turned against us, against _me_ , and _you_ — _weren't_ — _here_.”

After Iokath, the Alliance was divided. Some supported her decision to ally with the Republic; some didn't. Even Lana, who swore her allegiance regardless of Alliance sympathies, wavered at some points. Caldis would walk into the commissary and feel a hundred eyes on her, a carpet of whispers thrown at her feet.

Theron was supposed to be there. And he was, for a while, but looking back, all she can see is Umbara. When they returned to Odessen, Lana clutching her side, the whispers were louder, eyes burning stigmata into her skin.

“People were leaving left and right. Worlds disavowed us all throughout the Core. We built this together, you and me and Lana, and in the end _I_ was the one who had to bear the brunt of it, _I_ was the one who had to defend every single thing we did.” Even when she didn't agree, when the smart thing wasn't the right thing. “We played it safe. It was the only way the Alliance would survive. But people kept dying, kept accusing us of letting them die, and you know what I kept remembering?”

Lana on the floor, Umbara zipping past the windows. Theron's face, dappled red. The floor swaying beneath them.

“You've become a symbol of oppression.” She laughs, a pained huff of air. “You didn't mean it. I know that now. But I didn't back then. I thought—” What? That he believed in her? “I tried so hard, Theron. From the day I ran away to the day you left, all I did was try, all I did was worry it wouldn't be enough. And it wasn't.”

 _Now it's rotting from the inside_ , Theron told her. _The galaxy's fighting back._

She believed him.

“There were riots. Here, on Narsh. Lana said the Alliance shouldn't do anything, shouldn't get involved, but I had to do something. So I stole the _Defender_ one night. Couldn't let people know who I really was, so I raided Vette's closet.” Another laugh, more a sob than anything. “I saved people, like I wanted to when I first joined the Order, and it felt _good_ , it felt _right_.”

She hoped he'd be proud of her. Hoped that, once she was done, he'd look at her and see the woman he fell in love with. Ironic that, when he looks at her now, he barely even recognizes her.

“You were my compass, Theron.” Her voice is shaking, choked, even through the modulator. “Every time I doubted myself, you were the one who told me I was doing my best, that I wasn't—” Broken. After everything she's been through, everything she's done, how could she possibly be whole? “And suddenly you were gone, and no one knew how to be around me, how to talk to me. They just flat-out avoided me by the end.

“I was—” Broken. “Lost. I was lost. And this is the result.” She gestures to herself with a wide, sweeping arc of her arm. “This is who I had to become to get out of that place. And I'm sorry if I'm not what you want, what you expected to come back to, but this is what you get. If you have a problem with it, then you can go to hell.”


	17. Incandescent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Callie’s name canonically means "light" (according to that one Elven name generator I used back in 2012 when Z and I briefly considered a LOTR self-insert rp) so this hit me right in the FEELS
> 
> s/o to Taliesin Jaffe whose character on _Critical Role_ , Mollymauk, came up with the whole "leave a place better than you found it" thing. I've been meditating on it a lot, which means that Callie probably would as well ~

She misses Odessen.

She never thought she would. When she thinks of the base, she thinks of the year Theron was gone: all the nights she spent wandering the halls, T7 trailing behind her, bumping occasionally into her calves. But then, unprompted, but not entirely unwelcome, a memory: Vette and Rhyss staring each other down over a game of pazaak; the delicate sound of Lana’s laugh; fireflies caught in thick, dusky light…

She misses Odessen for what it could’ve been. What it stood for. In light of that, what she’s giving up on, Rishi feels somewhat lackluster.

Or maybe it’s her, she considers, watching the tide roll in. Things are better now that Theron’s back, but without the Alliance she feels lost. The Order gave her direction, purpose, and when she came out of carbonite, the Alliance was there to distract her from its sudden, gnawing absence. And now, without either, what point is there to anything? What point is there to—

“So this is where you disappeared to.” A kiss to the nape of her neck. “Should’ve known you’d be near the water.”

It reminds her of Alderaan. Green hills cresting gold, wound through with streams, rivers, burbling silver brooks. And, in a way, it reminds her of Odessen—just without the taint of Valkorion, the twin beads of his gaze staring out at her from the underbrush.

“Sorry,” says Caldis, leaning back against him. “I should’ve said something.”

“It’s okay.”

Theron drops a kiss to the crown of her head, looping his arms around her waist. It’s a familiar thing, nothing they haven’t done before, yet somehow it feels different. New. She’ll blame it on the sunset, how everything feels fresh, vibrant, beneath the blue sky of Rishi.

“You alright?” He nuzzles her temple, the line of her jaw, as if goading her to look at him. She does, of course, out of the corner of her eye, leaning into the touch. “You’ve seemed…”

“Quiet?”

“Distant.”

That too, she thinks, turning in his arms, hiding her face against his chest. She can’t decide if she likes the jacket or not. The year he was gone, she found herself missing his old one, red and creased, smelling faintly of cinnamon.

“I’ve just been thinking,” she says finally.

Theron hums, combing his fingers through her hair, working gently at the knots. “About what?”

The Alliance, mostly. Everything they’ve left behind. The base on Odessen, with all its empty rooms; the Force users who, after some convincing, fought at her behest, now forced to choose a side. The Republic, the Empire, Zakuul—for Caldis, the lines blurred long ago. She’s not entirely sure she can go back to that, if she can return so easily to something she thought she’d left behind.

“The future.” The shape of it, the texture. “Where we fit in it. _If_ we fit in it.”

Theron laughs. The sound reverberates in his chest, traveling up her arms to gather between her shoulder blades, warm and glowing. “Are you feeling left out?”

“Maybe,” admits Caldis. “Or, I guess, not left out so much as… unnecessary.”

“Yeah.” He squeezes her. “You know, I really struggled when the SIS disavowed me. I had the cult of my crazy powerful, back-from-the-dead relative to keep me busy, but I still felt like I was sitting on my ass. I didn’t know who I was without the SIS. And it only got worse when you were put in carbonite.”

She sighs, squeezing him back. She forgets, sometimes, how difficult it was for him. She lost five years in the blink of an eye, but Theron had to live it all—every ache-filled, dragging moment.

“My point,” he continues, huffing a chuckle, cheeks red, “is that it gets better. I know you’re tired of hearing that, but it’s true. We’re arguably worse off than we were when we started, but I’m happier than I was back then. I know where I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to be doing.” He pulls back, just enough to look at her, hands moving to cup her cheeks, thumbs rubbing circles against the skin. “I always thought I’d end up doing something big with my life. The whole ‘shitty with the Force’ thing really threw a wrench in my plans, but as it turns out, my big thing is making sure you can do _your_ big thing. It just took me a while to put two and two together.”

The heat trickles down her spine, pooling at the small of her back. Quirking a brow, she thumbs the corner of his mouth, blushing a little when he turns his head to kiss the pads of her fingers. “Is that a proposal, Mr. Shan?”

It’s Theron’s turn to blush. “We just got married. Literally. It hasn’t even been a month.”

Caldis laughs, moving to the tips of her toes, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “Nothing more romantic than a vow renewal. But I _guess_ we can wait a while longer, if you _insist_.”

His arms move, slinging low about her waist, tugging her against him. She goes willingly, eagerly, palms smoothing beneath his jacket to rest against his sides. She can feel his ribs—sharp, reckless when they jut against the heels of her hands.

“I just hate feeling useless,” says Caldis suddenly, surprising even herself. “The whole reason I left home was because I felt like I was wasting my life. I joined the Order so I could put my connection with the Force to good use, so I could _help_ people, and when that didn’t work I started the clinic, and now—”

Now, without the Alliance, she has nothing left. She’s sixteen again, meeting Rhyss in the gardens with a tote full of yesterday’s pastries. They spent entire nights like that, curled against each other to conserve warmth, rosebuds blotting out the sky. Rhyss taught her the names of constellations, sounding them out, tracing the freighter lanes with her pinky finger.

“The night Rhyss and I left, we toasted our new life with some whiskey we stole from my dad’s study. I threw up, like, five times the next day. But we talked about what we wanted to do, what we were _going_ to go, and we agreed that we’d always leave a place better than we found it. And I just keep asking myself if I’ve kept to that, you know? Like, sure, the Alliance did some good things, but we also did some not so good things, and I just—”

“Hey.” Theron’s voice is soft, steady. Soothing. “Look at me.”

After a long, tense moment, she does, jaw set.

“You don’t see how people look at you when you enter a room,” he says quietly, resting his forehead against her. “Like the sun came planetside to walk among the people. Admittedly not my best metaphor. But what I’m trying to say is that… we don’t always know the kind of impact we have. And I can guarantee that you have been the one spot of sunshine in a galaxy of darkness for hundreds of thousands of people. Even when you don’t try, you _still_ shine. So, yeah, things might be a little darker for a while. You may not be able to do as much without the Alliance. But you—” he swoops in, planting a kiss on her nose— “are the same Callie you’ve always been. You bring light wherever you go, and I love you for it. I have from the moment I met you.”

Caldis opens her mouth, but nothing comes out—nothing but a soft, warbling sound, vaguely in the shape of his name. Fingers interlocking at the small of his back, she hides her face against him. When she speaks, her voice is muffled. “Are you _sure_ that’s not a proposal?”

Theron hums a laugh, propping his chin atop her head. “Pretty sure. But ask me tomorrow. If you try hard enough, I might just change my mind.”


	18. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Faith is an odd lady, that was the problem."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, Callie and Theron honeymooned on Narsh, don't @ my dumbass children

Hours after Caldis returned from Copero, Min offered to tell her fortune.

Caldis groaned, working the knots in her muscles, the rippling lines of tension in her body. Rhyss sent her a holo the moment she left Copero. Between her briefing with Lana and the ride to Nar Shaddaa, she felt like she’d barely slept.

Min, of course, wanted to know everything. What Theron looked like, what he said; what it felt like to see him again for the first time in months. Rhyss sat sullenly on a cot as Caldis recounted everything, down to the color of Theron’s jacket, so unlike the red she was used to. And when Caldis fell silent, peering at herself in the dusty surface of the clinic’s only monitor—

_Let me tell your fortune._

Her reflection blinked, hair tousled, leather jumpsuit bunched at her waist. _What?_

Min reached for her hand. _Your fortune. Maybe your palm lines will have something to say about—_

_Min_ , said Rhyss from her place on the cot. _Drop it._

_But it might be good news!_ With a sour look at Rhyss, Min flipped her hand over, tracing the lines of Caldis’ palm with a forefinger. _Just because you’ve had shitty luck up till now doesn’t mean you always will. And, in_ my _humble opinion, sometimes you just need a trained professional to take you by the hand and tell you everything’s going to be okay._

Rhyss snorted. Caldis looked down at her semi-bare chest and asked, _Can’t this wait till I’m dressed?_

_And miss the stars aligning? Absolutely not._ Min hummed, thumbing the bump of cartilage at Caldis’ wrist. _You have faith that Theron will come back to you._

The breath snagged in her throat. _What?_

_You believe that Theron will return to you_ , said Min evenly. _And if you’re patient, that faith will be rewarded._

_Min._ Rhyss was past warnings. _I said drop it._

_You’ll struggle with your faith. You’ll think you’re supposed to let go, that it’d be smarter to, wiser. But it’s your faith that sees you through to the end. Not once does it—_

Rhyss moved fluidly, stepping between them, breaking Min’s hold on her. _Can’t you see you’re just making things worse?_ Meeting Caldis’ gaze in the monitor, she tugged sharply on the suit. _We should go. Last I checked, the district was going up in flames._

Later, as Caldis made to leave, Min stopped her in the entrance to the clinic. _Mom had a saying._ A pause. _Faith is a bitch._

Caldis waited expectantly.

_That’s the saying._

_Oh._ She looked out at the city, her city, with its decrepit buildings awash in rosy light. _Well._

_She was pretty taciturn._

Despite everything, Caldis huffed a laugh.

_My point_ , said Min, _is that… I know it’s hard. You’ve gone through some pretty tough shit. But I don’t want you to give up hope._ A squeeze to Caldis’ shoulder. _Sometimes faith is all we have. Sure, she’s a bitch, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? And I really do believe you’ll get what’s coming to you if you hold out hope._ Another squeeze, gentle, but lingering. _The stars were clear. And the stars are never wrong._

The stars, it turns out, were not wrong. If anything, they were right.

Theron lies next to her, face tucked in the crook of his elbow. For the longest moment, all she can do is contemplate him: his smooth, brown skin; his shoulders, how they rise and fall. She loves him always, every second and minute and hour, but she especially loves him like this, gentled with sleep, curled on his side.

It’s a strange, magical thing, Caldis thinks, to be with him again. To be with him like this, safe and content, nothing between them but wrinkled sheets.

She remembers, dimly, Copero. Cool, brisk air, cutting through her armor; snow giving way to ice, crunching beneath her boots. She met Theron’s gaze—hardened, unrecognizable—and thought to herself how broken things felt. How broken _they_ felt; how it would surely take a miracle for them to find each other again.

But Min was right. She had faith. It didn’t always feel like it—not when she and Lana would spar, trading blows, anger bleeding from her like an untreated wound; not when she and Rhyss would steal through the streets of Nar Shaddaa, hiding behind masks. But the faith was always there, keeping the bed warm, lurking in dreams of Theron coming home. Oftentimes she woke to the memory of his kiss, the tip of his nose dragging against her jaw.

She didn’t accept it. Him. Not right away. But once she did, loving him was like falling into step—easy, remembered. It was her faith, she knows, that kept her alive, that made their reunion as natural as breathing.

Sighing, she presses a kiss to his brow, dragging her fingers through his hair. After a moment, he stirs, lashes fluttering.

“How long have you been up,” he mumbles into his pillow, eyes still closed.

“What, no ‘good morning’? Hey, hi, how’d you sleep—”

“You were s’posed to sleep in.”

“I did.” Sort of. “It’s not my fault I like watching you sleep.”

He cracks an eye, glaring at her. “Actually, it kind of is.”

Caldis huffs a breath. “Let me rephrase: it’s not _my_ fault that you’re adorable when you sleep, nor is it my fault that my body wakes up early _so_ I can watch you sleep.”

It’s Theron’s turn to huff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m adorable all the time.”

“Well, yeah. Obviously. But you’re _extra_ adorable when you’re asleep. Your hair’s all spiky, and your nose scrunches up, and you make all these little snuffling noises—”

Pushing himself up on an elbow, he tugs her down next to him, rolling on top of her. The air leaves Caldis in a loud, happy laugh, shuddering through her body. “Adorable,” says Theron, “is not exactly what I’ve been going for these past few days. Or ever, really, but especially not on my _honeymoon_.”

“What’s wrong with adorable?” She beams up at him, hair a dark, tangled halo. “It’s affectionate, tender—”

“I’ve been trying for sensual.”

Caldis makes a face. “On Narsh? Really?”

“ _You_ wanted a destination wedding.”

“I’ll give you that one,” she says after a moment, sighing when his mouth finds her pulse point.

“Thank you,” says Theron primly, kissing over her jaw, teeth flashing against her lower lip. Panting a little, he pulls back, looking down at her with dark, bleary eyes. Again it occurs to her how strange it is, how magical, to be with him like this again. To be the one peering up at him, their bodies cast in soft purple light.

“What?” The question is followed by a kiss to her brow. “You have your thinking face on.”

She laughs breathlessly, tipping her head back, arching into the touch. “The stars were right.”

He quirks a brow. “Now, I know I don’t have a lightsaber or anything like that, but I’m _pretty sure_ that’s not a Jedi saying.”

“It’s not.” Her palm drags down his spine, curling against the small of his back. “After Copero, Min read my palm. She said I had faith you’d come back to me, and that, if I held out hope, that faith would be rewarded.” She pauses, flushing slightly. “She also said faith was a bitch. But, you know, that’s Min for you.”

Theron laughs quietly, absentmindedly. His hand finds her hip, the skin of her abdomen, the touch gentle, fleeting. “Was she right?” he asks finally. “Did the bitch reward you?”

Caldis snorts. Smooths a palm around to rest against his chest, right above his heart. When she speaks, her voice is hushed. “You came back to me.”

He sighs, leaning into her hand. “I did.”

“And we’re married.”

“We are.”

“And we’re happy.”

He smiles softly, nodding.

“So yes.” Her gaze flicks briefly to his mouth. “She did. Which means Min was right, which means the _stars_ were right.” A pause. Caldis swallows the lump in her throat. “I’m happy. And I’m not afraid of that happiness suddenly being taken away from me. I don’t remember the last time I felt like that.” If she ever even has.

“You’re my reward, Theron. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


	19. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Pressing their hands together to compare the sizes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... probably deserve some kinkshaming for this one.

She can’t stop looking at Theron’s hands.

Rhyss got her to try something called a Tatooine Sunset—which, as far as drinks go, wasn’t the best she’s ever had. But it was certainly high in alcohol content, because her whole body is warm, the lights of the bar blurring when she moves. It was Kira’s idea, celebrating their victory on Yavin, and she’s generally in support of letting loose every once in a while. But inviting Rhyss? Bad idea. And inviting _Theron_ —

She can’t stop looking at his hands. But, really, they’re _nice_ hands. Large, with long, lithe fingers. With blasters, datapads, T7’s circuitry, they’re steady, knowing. But with _her_ —

She can’t stop thinking about Yavin. How, after Rishi, her body came to expect his own—a hand at the small of her back; fingers trailing the jut of her wrist, trying to pin down the relentless hammer of her pulse. After Revan, his hands found her face. His palms were calloused, puckered, so much like her own.

_Is this okay?_ He kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of an eye. _Callie. Is this okay?_

She couldn’t think, everything in her _yes_ and _please_ and—

_Kiss me, Theron._ She remembers, faintly, slipping a hand in the pocket of his jacket, pinching the leather between thumb and forefinger. Remembers looking past him, at the lights dancing through thickets of trees. _Please._

He had, a hand moving to cradle her nape. When he pulled back, it was only to kiss her elsewhere: her cheeks, the corner of her mouth, the crook of her neck. His fingers found the line of her jaw, tracing the curve with trembly precision—

She blinks. Looks down at her glass, her hands spread against the bartop. If anyone asks, she’ll blame it on the alcohol. Or Rhyss. Or Theron, by which she means Theron’s hands, by which means her body and its betrayal and how, even now, it aches for his touch. The way he handled her, gentle in its curiosity. Not at all like he is with his blasters, his datapads, cocky and sure.

Theron keeps looking at her. Which is really just—well, dreadful, least of all because she’s tipsy. What is she supposed to _do_ , anyway? They _kissed_ , and neither of them want to address it, so they just keep tiptoeing around each other and Yavin and what happened on Yavin and the fact that he definitely, without a doubt, most _assuredly_ had his tongue in her mouth—

She needs a drink. At the thought, she groans a little, hiding her face in her hands.

“I forgot how obvious you are when you’re drunk,” says Rhyss from somewhere behind her.

“First of all,” she gets out, “I’m not _drunk_ , I’m _tipsy_.”

“Semantics.”

“Secondly, I hate you.”

“Wow, okay, that’s a little—”

“Thirdly, what are you even doing here?”

“You invited me, remember?” The stool next to her squeaks a little. She can’t help but groan again. “I helped you find Darok.”

She did. But that doesn’t make Rhyss’ presence—or the Tatooine Sunset—any easier to swallow.

“Have I mentioned that I hate you?” After a moment, she cracks an eye. Rhyss sits next to her, back against the bar, elbows propped up. “Because I do. I’m a _Jedi_ , Rhyss, I can’t just be—” She waves a hand at nothing in particular. “—getting drunk like this.”

“Sure you can. Besides, this is a celebration. It’s not like you’re on some week-long bender.”

Rhyss quirks a brow, then, giving her a once-over. Caldis tenses, shoulders curling in on themselves. Somewhere in the bar, Doc laughs—a wild, raucous sound, bouncing off the walls. “What?”

“You’re stressed.”

_Yes_ , Caldis thinks, and _obviously_ , and _please don’t mention_ —

“I saw you looking at him.” Rhyss peers past her. A quick, unassuming glance, one Caldis recognizes. Her body stirs with sudden, anxious heat. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good-looking guy. It’s about time you—”

“Rhyss,” says Caldis, only it comes out a whine. It’s far too warm in here. That, or there are too many bodies crammed into too small a space. That, or she drank too much, and the Force is playing an unbearably cruel trick.

Her eyes soften. “What are you so afraid of?”

The tumble of his laugh. His fingers, brown and perfect. How, when he cupped her cheeks, everything stilled, even her heart.

“His hands.” She doesn’t know why she says it, only that she does. Only that it’s true.

“His hands,” Rhyss echoes.

How they always seem to find her. How she always seems to lean into them, searching for his warmth, for the curve of his palm against her back.

Whenever she dreams, she dreams of his hands.

“I like them.”

“Ah.” Rhyss nods, like she’s heard it all before. It occurs to Caldis that maybe she has. “Well, you might want to put a lid on it, because Mr. Sexy Hands is lookin’ like he’s about to—yep, here he comes.” Leaning back a little, she lifts her chin in greeting. “Hey, Tiger. You got another jacket somewhere, or is this your way of saying you have a leather fetish?”

_Shit_ , Caldis thinks, and _I’m too drunk for this_ , followed by—

“Theron!” She straightens in her seat, only she must’ve miscalculated somewhere along the way, which she’d probably blame on the alcohol if she wasn’t pitching backwards, hands flashing out to grab helplessly at the bartop.

“Whoa,” chuckles Theron, a hand at the small of her back, warm and perfect and— “Careful. Little tottery there, huh?”

“I made her try a Sunset,” says Rhyss, practically beaming.

“Coerced,” spits Caldis, cheeks red.

“Suggested.”

“Manipulated.”

“It’s called peer pressure, sweets.” Her grin widens. “Were your ears burning, Shan?”

“What?”

Rhyss suggested Caldis change out of her robes into something more casual, so she can feel his heat through the fabric of her shirt, coming off him in waves. It’s distracting. That, and the little circles he’s rubbing against her with the pad of his thumb, making her want to scream.

“We were talking about you.” Rhyss glances at her, quick and unassuming, just sly enough to make her want to punch something. “Or, she was. I was mostly just listening.”

“Oh?” Caldis doesn’t need to see him to know that he’s smirking. The heel of his hand presses against her spine, and she bites back a gasp, arching into the touch.

“She likes your hands.”

“She does?” A pause. “You do?” He tugs a little on the hem of her shirt, and she realizes, then, how utterly trapped she is, sandwiched between two well-meaning people that are probably, most definitely intent on murdering her.

“I’m tipsy,” says Caldis pitifully.

“And that,” says Rhyss, pushing herself to her feet, “is my cue to leave.” Grabbing her drink, she drops a kiss to the crown of Caldis’ head, leveling a glance at Theron. “Be nice to her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His hand, Caldis notes, is still at the small of her back. She wonders, dimly, what it means, or if the alcohol is making her see meaning that isn’t actually there. “I’m always nice.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Rhyss laughs at Theron, winks at Caldis, and leaves. She watches her go, feeling vaguely betrayed, and more than a little bereft.

He’s touching her back now, tracing her spine, the touch light and teasing. “So,” he laughs suddenly.

She groans, burying her face in her hands.

“That bad, huh?”

“Don’t look at me.” She says it without thinking. “I don’t want you to…— it was an accident, you know? I didn’t _mean_ to get drunk—”

“Callie.”

“You don’t need to tell your mom I got peer pressured into downing a Tatooine Sunset, I’m a _Jedi_ and I’m _responsible_ and I _promise_ I don’t go on about your hands when I’m sober—”

“Callie.”

She’s starting to regret the whole casualwear thing. He lowers himself onto a barstool, a hand moving to cup her elbow, and it very nearly burns her. Is this what he feels all the time? Maybe it’s not so much a leather fetish, she thinks, so much as it is that, when he wears the jacket, it makes her touches a little less… scorching.

Huffing a breath, she turns her head. He’s smiling at her. A worn, gentle thing, eyes creased at the corners. “Do you hate me?”

“What?”

“Do you hate me?” She says it a little too quickly, words running into each other. “For saying I like your hands.”

He quirks a brow. Caldis watches for signs of amusement, for flippancy or smugness, but finds none. “Why would I hate you?”

Her cheeks stir with warmth. She tries to look away, but finds she can’t. What else is there to look at, anyway, when all she knows is him. It’s like the room has fallen away, leaving nothing but the cybernetics at his temple. His hands—one on her arm, stroking the crease at her elbow.

“If anything,” he continues, voice soft, “I should be flattered. Right?” He squeezes her elbow. Once, twice, three times, trying to get her to look at him. “I mean, most people comment on my butt—”

She can’t help it. She snorts.

“—so in terms of compliments, yours is pretty high on the list.”

“There’s a list?”

“Well, yeah. I’m objectively gorgeous.”

Again she snorts. As nice as it is, his hand on her elbow, she wishes it were on her back again. Wishes she could lean into it, knowing he’ll support her, knowing he’ll hold her up.

“So what is it about my hands?”

She doubts he’s teasing her. And if he is, well—she doubts she’ll mind all that much. “They’re…” Warm and large and— “Gentle.”

“Gentle?”

“ _You’re_ gentle,” she corrects breathlessly, eyes flicking from his hands to his mouth to the swell of cartilage at the base of his wrist. “With me, I mean. And they’re _huge_.”

Desperate to do something that isn’t just stare at him, she props herself up, finding his hand with her own. He’s just like she remembered, warm and calloused and, at the juncture of palm and wrist, a quiet throbbing: his heartbeat. Wetting her lips, she presses her palm to his, splaying her fingers against his own.

“See?” His hand is bigger than hers. Much so. She remembers how encompassed she’d felt on Yavin, with his palms against her cheeks. How safe. “Huge.”

He laughs, and it’s so much like the tumble in her dreams that, for a moment, she can hardly breathe. “I don’t think I’ve ever had someone say my hands were huge.” He looks at her, then. Her hand, small and pale, cuticles raw from being picked at. And that, too, is enough to take her breath away—the softness of him, belly exposed to her. She looks past him and sees, not a flashy Coruscant bar, but a line of trees, suffused with gold-green light.

“Sorry,” she offers, lifting a shoulder.

“What? No.” He chuckles. Tangles their fingers, pulling her hand to his mouth. When he kisses her, it’s chaste, but lingering. A promise of some kind. She can’t help but wonder when he’ll fulfill it—if he’ll walk her back to her apartment tonight; if, in the shadow of her doorway, his hand will find her jaw, always with that trembling precision. “It’s cute.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Cute?”

“Cute,” he affirms. Another kiss, one to her wrist, the pad of her thumb.

“But I’m a Jedi,” she protests, a little halfheartedly. She’ll blame it on the alcohol—how, at the press of his mouth to her skin, everything grows warm and hazy, heartbeat lurching against the skin of her wrist.

“Jedi can’t be cute?” He looks at her through lowered lashes, kissing up her arm now. Quick, small pecks.

“Well.” She can’t think. If anyone asks, she’ll blame it on the alcohol. “Just this once. But don’t tell your mom.”

He laughs, flashing his teeth against her skin. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”


End file.
